John Wakeman (died 1549) was an English

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

, the last Abbot of Tewkesbury and first

Bishop of Gloucester The Bishop of Gloucester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Gloucester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the County of Gloucestershire and part of the County of Worcestershire. The see's centre of governan ...

, both posts in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

county of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of ...

. In the earlier part of his life he went by the name John Wiche.

Life

He was the second son of William Wakeman of Drayton,

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

. He supplicated in the name of John Wyche, for the degree of

Bachelor of Divinity In Western universities, a Bachelor of Divinity or Baccalaureate in Divinity (BD or BDiv; la, Baccalaureus Divinitatis) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded for a course taken in the study of divinity or related disciplines, such as theolog ...

on 3 February 1511. On 19 March 1534 a ''

congé d'élire ( , ; fro, label=Law French, congé d'eslire, lit=leave/permission to choose) is a licence from the Crown in England issued under the great seal to the dean and chapter of the cathedral church of a diocese, authorizing them to elect a bishop ...

'' was issued for the election of an abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Tewkesbury to replace Henry Beeley, deceased. On 27 April 1534 the royal assent was given to the election of John Wiche, late prior, as abbot. The temporalities were restored on 10 June. Wiche had secured his own appointment by intrigue, obtaining the interest of Sir William Kingston and of

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false char ...

, and by then persuading his brethren to refer the election to the king's pleasure. At the end of July 1535 both Cromwell and the king were staying at the monastery, and in October Wiche sent Cromwell a gelding and £5 to buy him a saddle. He supplied information to the government on the disaffection of one of his priors. On 9 January 1539 he surrendered his monastery, receiving an annuity of four hundred marks. He then seems to have taken the name Wakeman, by which he was afterwards known. On his nomination to the newly erected see of Gloucester in September 1541 this pension was vacated. The date of the letters patent for the erection of the bishopric is 3 September 1541. Wakeman was consecrated by

Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Hen ...

Edmund Bonner Edmund Bonner (also Boner; c. 15005 September 1569) was Bishop of London from 1539 to 1549 and again from 1553 to 1559. Initially an instrumental figure in the schism of Henry VIII from Rome, he was antagonised by the Protestant reforms intro ...

, and

Thomas Thirlby Thomas Thirlby (or Thirleby; –1570), was the first and only bishop of Westminster (1540–50), and afterwards successively bishop of Norwich (1550–54) and bishop of Ely (1554–59). While he acquiesced in the Henrician schism, with its reje ...

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an exten ...

in September 1541. In 1547 he attended the funeral of

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

, and on 19 February of the same year assisted at the consecration of Arthur Bulkeley as

bishop of Bangor The Bishop of Bangor is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Bangor. The see is based in the city of Bangor where the bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Cathedral Church of Saint Deiniol. The ''Report of the Commissioners appointed ...

. Wakeman must have had some pretensions to scholarship and theology. In 1542, when Cranmer was projecting a revision of the translation of the ''

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

'', he assigned the Revelation to Wakeman, with John Chambers, bishop of Peterborough, as his colleague. Wakeman died early in December 1549. His place of burial is

Gloucester Cathedral Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the River Severn. It originated with the establishment of a minster dedicated to ...

. While abbot of Tewkesbury, Wakeman constructed a

cadaver tomb A cadaver monument or ''transi'' (or memento mori monument, Latin for "reminder of death") is a type of church monument to deceased persons featuring a sculpted effigy of a skeleton or an emaciated, even decomposing, dead body. It was particularly ...

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...

in Tewkesbury Abbey, on the north-east side of the high altar, which is still to be seen. His nephew Richard was great-grandfather of

Sir George Wakeman Sir George Wakeman (died 1688) was an English doctor, who was royal physician to Catherine of Braganza, Consort of Charles II of England. In 1678, in the allegations of the fabricated Popish Plot, he was falsely accused of treason by Titus Oates, ...

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wakeman, John 1549 deaths English Benedictines Abbots of Tewkesbury Bishops of Gloucester 16th-century English bishops People associated with the Dissolution of the Monasteries Year of birth missing Clergy from Worcestershire Burials at Gloucester Cathedral 15th-century Anglican theologians 16th-century Anglican theologians People from Wyre Forest District