date of the letters patent for the erection of the bishopric is 3 Sept. 1541. Wakeman was consecrated by Cranmer, Bonner, and Thirlby at Croydon on 20 or 25 Sept. 1541. In 1547 he attended the funeral of Henry VIII (Strype, Eccl. Mem. II. ii. 291), and on 19 Feb. of the same year assisted at the consecration of Arthur Bulkeley as bishop of Bangor (Strype, Cranmer, p. 136). Wakeman must have had some pretensions to scholarship and theology. It is true that it was in his capacity of abbot of Tewkesbury that he signed the articles drawn up by convocation in 1536; but in 1542, when Cranmer was projecting a revision of the translation of the New Testament, he assigned the Revelation to Wakeman, with Dr. John Chambers, bishop of Peterborough, as his colleague. Wakeman died early in December 1549, the spiritualities being taken into the hands of the archbishop on the sixth of that month. His place of burial is uncertain. While abbot of Tewkesbury, Wakeman constructed a splendid tomb for himself on the north-east side of the high altar, which is still to be seen. He does not appear to be entitled to any further epitaph than that of an intriguing and servile ecclesiastic.
In Bedford's ‘Blazon of Episcopacy’ (2nd edit. 1897) two coats-of-arms are assigned him, the first on the authority of a British Museum manuscript (Addit. MS. 12443), being party per fess indented sable and argent three doves rising countercharged. This was presumably the coat granted to the bishop, for a reference to the College of Arms shows that the second coat, Vert a saltier, wavy ermine, was granted in 1586 to his nephew Richard, great-grandfather of Sir George Wakeman [q. v.]
[Cal. State Papers, Dom. Hen. VIII; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 756; Hearne's Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, pp. xx–xxi; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 436; Bennett's Hist. of Tewkesbury, 1830; Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation; Lansd. MS. 980, f. 73; Harl. MS. 6185.]
WAKERING, JOHN (d. 1425), bishop of Norwich, derived his name from Wakering, a village in Essex. On 21 Feb. 1389 he was instituted to St. Benet Sherehog in the city of London, which he resigned early in 1396 (Newcourt, Repertorium Ecclesiasticum, i. 304). In 1395 he was already a master or clerk in chancery, acting as receiver of petitions to parliament (Rot. Parl. iii. 337 b, 348 a, 416 a, 455 a, 486 a, &c.). On 15 Oct. 1399 he was appointed chancellor of the county palatine of Lancaster and keeper of its great seal (Wylie, Henry IV, iii. 301). He did not hold this continuously, for on 20 May 1400 the chancellor of the duchy was William Burgoyne; but on 28 Jan. 1401 Wakering was again chancellor, and again on 3 Sept. 1402 and 20 Feb. 1403 (Wylie, iii. 301 n.)
On 2 March 1405 Wakering became master of the domus conversorum, and keeper of the chancery rolls, offices he held for more than ten years (Newcourt, i. 340; Wylie, iii. 301, from Issue Roll, 7 Hen. IV). On 26 May 1408 he is called clerk of the chancery rolls and of the domus conversorum (Wylie, iii. 301 n.). He also held the prebend of Thame till 1416 (Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 221). On 10 March 1409 Wakering was appointed archdeacon of Canterbury (Wylie, iii. 301; cf., however, Le Neve, Fasti). He became canon of Wells on 30 July 1409 (Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 417).
Wakering was probably the John who, with the bishops of Durham and London, treated in 1407 for the renewal of the Scottish truce (Wylie, ii. 396). From 19 to 31 Jan. 1410 he was keeper of the great seal, and while Sir Thomas Beaufort was absent from London from 7 May to 18 June 1411 Wakering acted as deputy-chancellor (ib. iii. 301, iv. 24; Fœdera, viii. 694).
On 3 June 1415 Wakering resigned the mastership of the rolls on becoming keeper of the privy seal (Kal. and Inv. Exch. ii. 130, 132). On 24 Nov. he was elected bishop of Norwich (Capgrave, Chron. Engl. p. 311), and the same day the royal assent to the election was given. He was consecrated at St. Paul's on 31 May 1416 (Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angl. p. 64; Godwin, De Præsul. Angl. pp. 438, 439). On 27 May he received restitution of his temporalities (ib.; Fœdera, ix. 354).
On 20 July 1416 Wakering was nominated joint ambassador to the council of Constance (ib. ix. 370). Monstrelet says that, at the instance of Sigismund, Wakering was in 1416 (cf. Creighton, i. 368) sent as English ambassador to the king of France, and went first to Calais (probably in August) and thence to Beauvais, where he treated, but nothing was accomplished (Monstrelet, iii. 147, ed. Société de l'Histoire de France).
Wakering had left England for Constance by 16 Dec. 1416 (Fœdera, ix. 254, 371, 420), and was no doubt present in January 1417 at the curious demonstration by the English bishops which accompanied the return of Sigismund to Constance as the close ally of England (Von der Hardt, iv. 1088, 1089, 1091). Wakering appears to have acted in absolute unanimity with Hallam, who since 20 Oct. 1414 had led the English ‘nation’ and directed its policy in the council.
