William Wade (English politician)

Sir William Wade (or Waad) (1546 - October 21, 1623), English statesman and diplomatist, and lieutenant of the Tower of London.

Early life and education

Wade was the eldest son of Armagil Wade, the traveller, who sailed with a party of adventurers for North America in 1536, later, one of the clerks of the privy council in London and a member of parliament, and his second wife, Alice nee Patten.

Both his parents died in 1568, and William succeeded to the family property, his father’s sons by his first wife having predeceased him. In 1571 he was admitted a student of Gray’s Inn, and a few years later, doubtless with a view to entering the service of government, he began travelling on the continent.

Career

In July 1576 Wade was residing at Paris, and frequently supplied political information to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, whose ‘servant’ he is described as being. ["Lansd. MS. 23", art. 75] He claimed ‘familiar acquaintance’ with the celebrated French publicist, Jean Bodin, from whom he seems to have derived some of the news he forwarded to Burghley. In the autumn of 1576 Amias Paulet took Wade to Blois ["Cal. State Papers", For. 1575-7] . During the winter of 1578-9 he was in Italy, whence he forwarded to Burghley reports on its political condition. From Venice in April 1579 he sent the Burghley fifty of the rarest kinds of seeds in Italy. ["Cal. Hatfield MSS." ii. 254] In May he was at Florence, and in February 1579-1580 he was residing at Strasburg. In the following April he was employed on some delicate mission in Paris by Sir Henry Cobham.

Among appointments in London, Wade undertook a number of ambassadorial missions, in 1580 to Portugal; [Sloane MS 1442, f. 114 - Instructions to, as Ambassador to Portugal, [1580] ] then in 1581 he became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham and in 1583 he was appointed as one of theclerks of the Privy Council. [Cal. State Papers Domestic, 1611-18, p.198] . In April of that year he was sent to Vienna to discuss the differences between the Hanseatic League and English merchants abroad, and in July he accompanied Lord Willoughby on his embassy to Denmark to invest the king with the insignia of the Garter, and to negotiate an agreement on mercantile affairs. [Birch 24, 31] .

In January 1583-4 he was sent to Madrid [Sloane MS 2442, f.128. - Instructions to, as Ambassador to Spain, 1583/4.] to explain the expulsion from England of the |Spanish ambassador, Mendoza. He arrived in March, but Phillip II refused all his requests for an interview, and ordered him out of Spain, with an intimation that he was fortunate to escape free . ["Cotton. MS." Vesp. C. vii. f.392] [Cal. State Papers, Simancas, 1580-6, pp. 516, 520-1] [Birch 45, 48] [Froude 414, 422] He was back in England on 12 April, and with his return diplomatic relations between England and Spain ceased. In the same month Waad was sent to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots to induce her to come to terms with Elizabeth, and his account of the interview is printed by Froude. [Froude, 448-51] In February 1584-5 he was appointed to accompany Nau to the court of James VI, but was stopped at the last minute. [Cal. State Papers, Simancas, 1580-6, pp. 533]

In March 1585 Wade was despatched to Paris. [Sloane MS 2442. ff. 63, 65 b. - Instructions to, as Ambassador to France, 1584/5. 1586/7.] to demand the surrender of the conspirator Thomas Morgan. Henry III was willing to consider the request but the Catholic League and the Guises were violently opposed to it, and even instructed the Duc d’Aumale to waylay Waad and rescue Morgan on their way to the coast. Waad, however, convinced that he could not secure Morgan, contented himself with obtaining a promise that he should be detained in prison in France, but Aumale nevertheless attacked the envoy near Amiens, and inflicted in him a severe beating as an answer to his demand for the extradition of a catholic from France. In August Waad accompanied William Davison to the Low Countries to negotiate an alliance with the States-General of the Netherlands.

A year later he took a prominent part in arranging the seizure of Mary Stuart’s papers which implicated her in the Babington Plot. He himself went down to Chartley in August 1586, and, while Mary was decoyed away on a hunting expedition, arrested her secretaries Nau and Curle, and having ransacked her cabinet, carried back a valuable collection of papers to London. [Cal. State Papers, Simancas, 1580-6 pp. 625-6] [Paulet pp. 288 sqq] [Froude xii. 160 sqq] For this important service he was paid thirty pounds.Acts P. C. 1586-7, p. 211]

In 1587 was again in France. During the remainder of the reign of Elizabeth I of England, Wade was much occupied in searching for Jesuits and in discovering plots against the life of the queen.

James I, who knighted him in 1603. employed him in similar ways, and he was fully occupied in unravelling the plots which marked the early years of the new reign. Sir William Wade was Lieutenant of the Tower at the time of the Gunpowder Plot and questioned Guy Fawkes. For some time Wade was a member of the Parliament of England.

Later life

He retired from public life in 1613, and died on the 21st of October 1623. Sir William was a shareholder in the Virginia Company, and the Wades of Virginia claim descent from his father.

Notes

References

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* Cite web
title = Calendar of State Papers, Domestic. Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, and James I
work = Internet Archive
accessdate = 2008-08-21 | date = 1856
url = http://www.archive.org/details/calendarofstatep03greauoft
quote = [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/DisplayCatalogueDetails.asp?CATID=248&CATLN=1&FullDetails=False Records assembled by the State Paper Office, including papers of the Secretaries of State up to 1782]
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*cite book |last= Scott |first= Edward J. L. |editor= |others= |title=Index to the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Museum |origdate= |origyear= |origmonth= |url= http://ia300243.us.archive.org/0/items/indsloanemanuscr00scottuoft/indsloanemanuscr00scottuoft.pdf |format= pdf |accessdate= 2008-08-27 |year=1904|publisher= British Museum |location= London |pages=555 |ref=sloane
*1911
*DNB

Persondata
NAME = Waad, William, Sir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Wade, William, Sir
SHORT DESCRIPTION = statesman and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH =
PLACE OF BIRTH =
DATE OF DEATH = 21 October 1623
PLACE OF DEATH =