Wake (1297-1349) belonged to a Lincolnshire family which also had lands in Cumberland. He was the son of John Wake, 1st Baron Wake of Liddell (died 1300), who was summoned to parliament as a baron in 1295, and the grandson of Baldwin Wake (died 1282), both warriors of repute.
Among Thomas Wake's guardians were Piers Gaveston and Henry, Earl of Lancaster, whose daughter Blanche ( -1380) he married before 1317. She was the niece of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and her husband was thus attached to the Lancastrian party, but he did not follow Earl Thomas in the proceedings which led to his death in 1322. Hating the favourites of Edward II, Wake joined Queen Isabella in 1326 and was a member of the small council which advised the young king, Edward III. Soon, however, he broke away from the queen and her ally, Roger Mortimer], and in conjunction with his father-in-law, now earl of Lancaster, he joined the malcontent barons.
Flight to France
He was possibly implicated in the plot which cost his brother-in-law, Edmund of Woodstock, his life in 1330, and he fled to France, returning to England after the overthrow of Isabella and Mortimer. Edward III made him Warden of the Channel Islands and he assisted Edward Bruce to invade Scotland, being afterwards sent on an errand to France. In 1341 he incurred the displeasure of the king and was imprisoned, but he had been restored and had been employed in Brittany and elsewhere when he died childless.
His estates passed to his sister Margaret, widow of Edmund, Earl of Kent, and grandmother of the future King Richard II.
| Predecessor | Successor | |
| Pierre Bernard de Pynsole and Laurens de Gaillard 1330-1331 |
Thomas Wake of Liddell 1331-1333 |
Guillaume de Montagu and Henry de Ferrers 1334 - 1337 |
