On 19 March 1534 a congé d'élire 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.
Wiche had secured his own appointment by intrigue, obtaining the interest of Sir William Kingston and of Thomas Cromwell, and by then persuading his brethren to refer the election to the king's pleasure.
On his nomination to the newly erected see of Gloucester in September 1541 this pension was vacated.
In 1547 he attended the funeral of Henry VIII, and on 19 February of the same year assisted at the consecration of Arthur Bulkeley as bishop of Bangor.
In 1542, when Cranmer was projecting a revision of the translation of the New Testament, he assigned the Revelation to Wakeman, with John Chambers, bishop of Peterborough, as his colleague.