 Wake then became British representative at the court of Savoy, and retained that office for nearly sixteen years.In 1617 he went to Bern, at the request of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, to mediate an alliance between Savoy and the Swiss states.At the end of 1618 he came to London, being "much courted" by the French ministers on his way through Paris, and was knighted on 9 April 1619 at Royston, Hertfordshire, where the king lay ill in bed.