Sir Thomas WAKE, Sr

   Another name for Thomas was Sir Knight.

   Ancestral File Number: 9Q0W-47. User ID: 2363908.

   General Notes:

Sir Knight

BOOKS
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Chicago, 1981, Vol II, p447, Calais: "...Industrial seaport on the Strait of Dover, Pas-de-Calais, northern France, 21 mi (34 km) by sea from Dover (the shortest crossing from England)...After the Battle of Crecy, it withstood an English siege for almost a year (1346) until it was starved out. The famous episode of the six burghers who surren- dered to save Calais is commemorated by Auguste Rodin's statuary group..."

The Story of Civilization, Will Durant, Vol VI, The Reformation, Chap III, France Besieged, Sect I, The Road to Crecy 1337-1347, p63:
"The truce having expired, Edward III invaded and devastated Normandy. On August 26, 1346, the English and French armies met at Crecy and prepared for a decisive battle. Leaders and men on both sides heard Mass, ate the body and drank the blood of Jesus Christ, and asked His aid in dispatching one another. Then theyfought with courage and ferocity, giving no quarter. Edward the Black Prince earned on that day the praise of his victorious father; Philip VI himself stood his ground till only six of his soldiers were left on the field. Thirty thousand men,in Froissart's loose estimate, died in that one engagement. Feudalism almost died there, too: the mounted chivalry of France, charging gallantly with short lances, stopped helpless before a wall of long English pikes pointed at their horses' breasts, while English bowmen on the wings scattered death among the chevaliers. The long heyday of cavalry, which had dawned at Adrianople 968 years before, here began to fade; infantry came to the fore, and the military supremacy of the aristocracy declined. Artillery was used at Crecy on a small scale, but the difficulties of moving and reloading it made it more troublesome than effective, so that Villani limited its usefulness to its noise.
"From Crecy Edward led his army to the siege of Calais, and there employed cannon against the walls (1347). The town held out for a year; then starving, it accepted Edward's condition that the survivors might leave in peace if six principal citizens would come to him with ropes around their necks and the keys of the city in their hands. Six so volunteered, and when they stood before the King he ordered them beheaded. The Queen of England knelt before him and begged for their lives; he yielded to her, and she had the men escorted to their homes in safety. The women stand out with more credit than kings in history, and fight bravely a desperate battle to civilized the men.
"Calais became now, and remained till 1558, a part of England, a strategic outlet for her goods and troops upon the Continent..."

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File Ver 4.10 9Q0W-47 Died 15 Mar 1347 at Seige of Calais France.

   Marriage Information:

Thomas married Elizabeth CRANSLEY, daughter of Hugh CRANSLEY, before 1317 in Cransley, Northamptonshire, England. (Elizabeth CRANSLEY was born about 1295 in Cransley, Northamptonshire, England.)