heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

THE WAKES. 303
He married Alice Fitz-Alan, daughter of Richard Earl of Arundel. Five
of his six daughters made great marriages, and he was succeeded at his
death in 1397, by his eldest son Thomas. His prosperity was brief, for
he was attainted by Henry IV., and beheaded by the populace
at Cirencester,
1400, leaving a widow Joane, daughter of Hugh Earl of Stafford,
but no children.
His brother Edmund succeeded him in
his honours and estates, and
seems to have been loyal to Henry IV., as he was appointed by him a
commissioner to treat for peace with the Duke of Brittany; but on the
1
5th September, 1407, he received a mortal wound in the head by an
arrow when besieging the castle and isle of Briak, and died leaving no
issue by his wife Lucy, daughter of the Duke of Milan, and the Barony
of Wake has been in abeyance ever since. But the family of Wake was
not extinct with the death of the last of the Hollands, but has continued
to this day in the descendants of Sir Hugh Wake, brother of John Wake
first Baron Wake. He is described as Lord of Deeping, in Lincolnshire,
and of Ellsworth, in Northamptonshire.*
In the reign of Henry VIII. there was a Wake living at Cottingham
Castle, who had a very beautiful wife, and who on receiving an intimation
that the King was at
Hull and intended to honour him with a visit, burnt
his house, preferring the loss thereof to the risk of the King's admiration ;
and later still there was in the seventeenth century, William Wake,
son of John Wake, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. There is an
interesting story told
in the Spectator, No. 313, with reference to John Wake,
with which I will conclude my notice of this family :
" Everyone who is acquainted with Westminster School knows that
"there is a curtain which used to be drawn across the room to separate
"the upper school from the lower. A youth happened by some mischance
" to tear the above-mentioned curtain. The severity of the master,
" Dr. Busby, was too well known for the criminal to expect any pardon for
" such a fault ;
so that the boy, who was of meek temper, was terrified to
" death at the thought of his appearance, when his friend, who sat next to
" him, bade him be of good cheer, for that he would take the fault on
" himself. He kept his word accordingly. As soon as they were grown
" up to be men the Civil War broke out, in which our two friends took
" opposite sides : one of them followed the Parliament, the other the Royal
" party. As their tempers were different, the youth who had torn the
" curtain endeavoured to raise himself on the Civil List, and the other
" who had borne the blame of it, on the military. The first succeeded so
"well that he was in a short time made a judge under the Protector.
" The other was engaged in the unhappy enterprise of Penruddork and
* Bishop Trollope.