the opposition he met with in the city (Passages in Life of a Radical, ii. 45); but his public career throughout was marked by talent and energy. He became sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1820, and on the day of the funeral of Queen Caroline was very conspicuous in his official capacity. In October 1833 he was elected lord mayor. On his retirement next year his opponents printed a satirical volume of the 'Maxims of Robert, Lord Waithman, some while Chief Magistrate of London,' which went through several issues. He was a candidate for the city chamberlainship in 1831, but was not successful.
Waithman died at his house in Woburn Place, London, on 6 Feb. 1833, and was buried in the church of St. Bride, Fleet Street, on 14 Feb. His wife was buried there on 8 Sept. 1827, aged 66. They had a large family. On the south wall of the west porch under the lower is a tablet with an inscription to him, 'the friend of liberty in evil times and of parliamentary reform in its adverse days.' An obelisk, erected 'by his friends and fellow-citizens' in 1833, stands in the northern half of Ludgate Circus, adjoining the spot where his first shop stood. Waithman's portrait by William Patten [see under Patten, George, presented by his family to the corporation of London, is in the Guildhall. A portrait by C. Holroyd was engraved by R. Cooper for the 'Aurora Borealis,' 16 Sept. 1821, and another painting of him in his robes as lord mayor was engraved by C. S. Taylor for the 'Now European Magazine,' 1 Dec. 1823; a full-length, drawn by Richard Dighton in 1818, is in the Wrexham free library. Waithman was the author of a pamphlet entitled 'War proved to be the Real Cause of the Present Scarcity' (1800; four editions), and a 'Letter to the Governors of Christ's Hospital, 1808,' on some children who had been admitted there for education, although their parents were in affluent circumstances.
[Gent. Mag. 1787 ii. 638, 1833 i. 178-80, ii. 558; Georgian Era, i. 581-2; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Orridge's London Citizens. p. 262; Welch's Modern London, pp. 120, 131, 149, 161, 170-1 (with portrait after Patren); Palmers Wrexham, iv. 279-80; Williams's Dict. of Eminent Welshmen, pp. 515-16: Thombury's Old and New London, i. 66, 68, 413, 641; Cunningham's London, ed. Wheatley. i. 239. ii. 32, 55; information from Rev. E. C. Hawkins. vicar of St. Bride, Fleet Street, and Mr. Peart, sexton and parish clerk.]
WAKE, HEREWARD the (fl. 1070–1071). [See Hereward.]
WAKE, Sir ISAAC (1580?–1632), diplomatist, was the second son of Arthur, son of John Wake of Hartwell, Northamptonshire, a descendant of the lords of Blisworth (Harl. MS. 1533, f. 2b; Bridges, Hist. of Northamptonshire, i. 336). His father, a canon of Christ Church and master of St. John's Hospital in Northampton, was rector of Great Billing in Northamptonshire until 1573, when he was deprived for nonconformity; he afterwards lived for many years in Jersey (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714; Archbishop Wake, Mem. of the Family of Wake, p. 61). Isaac is said by his kinsman, Archbishop Wake (Memoirs, p 62), to have been born in 1575; but he is entered as only twelve years old at his matriculation on 25 May 1593 (Clark, Reg. Univ. Oxon. II. ii. 196). He entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1593, and graduated B.A. in 1597; he was elected fellow of Merton in 1598, and graduated M.A. in 1603 (ib. ii. iii. 204; Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, p. 277). In 1604 he became a student at the Middle Temple, and on 14 Dec. in the same year he was elected public orator of Oxford University (Foster, Alumni Oxon.; Clark, ii. i. 251)'. He took part in the reception of King James in 1605, delivering an oration 'at the Hall-stair's foot in Christ Church' (Nichols, Progresses of James I, i. 546). The king seems to have thought his oratory polished, if soporific (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 345).
In 1609 Wake travelled in France and Italy, and soon afterwards became secretary to Sir Dudley Carleton [q. v.] at Venice. In March 1612 his leave of absence from Merton College was extended for three years (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611-18, p. 125); but in the following November he came to England for a few months, during which he pronounced a funeral oration on Sir Thomas Bodley [q. v.] He returned to Venice in March 1613, and stayed there, and afterwards at Turin, as Carleton's secretary until the latter left for England in July 1615 (Addit. MS. 1864O, f. 11). Wake then became British representative at the court of Savoy, and retained that office for nearly sixteen years. In 1617 he went to Berne, at the request of Charles Emmanuel, to mediate an alliance between Savoy and the Swiss states (ib. f. 39). At the end of 1618 he came to London, being 'much courted' by the French ministers on his way through Paris (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611-18, p. 603), and was knighted on 9 April 1619 at Royston, where the king lay ill in bed (Nichols, iii. 533). Immediately afterwards he was sent back to Turin with an
