William Wake (26 January 165724 January 1737) was a minister in the Church of England and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1716 to his death.
He returned to England in 1685. In 1688, he became preacher at Gray's Inn, and in 1689, he received a canonry of Christ Church, Oxford. In 1693, he was appointed rector of St James's Church, Piccadilly. Ten years later, he became Dean of Exeter, and in 1705, he was consecrated bishop of Lincoln. He was translated to the see of Canterbury in 1716 on the death of Thomas Tenison. Tenison had been his mentor and was responsible for his obtaining his bishopric despite the notable reluctance of Queen Anne, who regarded the appointment of bishops as her prerogative and distrusted Tenison's judgment.
In 1718, he negotiated with leading French churchmen about a projected union of the Gallican and English churches to resist the claims of Rome.Joseph Hirst Lupton, Archbishop Wake and the Project of Union, 1896 In dealing with Nonconformism, he was tolerant and even advocated a revision of the Book of Common Prayer if that would allay the scruples of dissenters.
His writings are numerous, the chief being his State of the Church and Clergy of England... historically deduced (London, 1703). In those writings, he produced a massive defence of Anglican Orders and again disproved the Nag's Head Fable by citing a number of documentary sources.William Wake: Archbishop of Canterbury, 1657–1737 by Norman Sykes The work was written in part as a refutation of the arguments of the "high church" opposition to the perceived Thomas Erastus policies of King William and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Tenison. He died at his official home, Lambeth Palace.
He was grandfather of the noted English geologist Etheldred Benett.
He was buried in Croydon Minster, in Surrey.
To the collection of manuscripts belonged minuscule manuscripts of the New Testament: 73, 74, 506-520. These manuscripts came from Constantinople to England about 1731.
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