with their purpose.'[1] But, although no secular priest is found to have been concerned in the Gunpowder Treason, only two years before (1603), an English secular priest, named William Watson, was one of the principal leaders in the conspiracy known as the 'Bye Plot.' This William Watson was greatly disliked by the Jesuits,[2] who hastened (on hearing of Watson's part in it) to give information to the Government, with the result that the plotter's plans were frustrated, and Watson, with others, executed. Information of Watson's proceedings was given to Cecil by both Garnet and Gerard, who sought thereby to gain for their own society a better reputation in the eyes of the Government, and, at the same time, to deal a deadly blow at a strong party of their coreligionists that supported those of the secular clergy,[3] who resisted the assumption of ecclesiastical authority in England by the Society of Jesus.[4] The two
- ↑ It is possible, but not probable, that Gerard was not the officiating priest, and that Faukes mistook another person for him.
- ↑ Watson was a man of very unprepossessing appearance. He squinted, and (according to a Jesuit) to such an extent that 'he looked nine ways at once.'
- ↑ There were two secular priests leaders in the 'Bye,' viz. : Watson and Clarke. Of these, Watson had been completely deceived by James's false promises to help the Romanists on his accession to the English throne. He was strongly opposed to the Jesuits' schemes for demanding the intervention of Spain
- ↑ 'Poor William Watson was betrayed by the man (Garnet) who, two years after, would not betray his friend Catesby; and the virulent opponent (Watson) of the Jesuits expiated his treason on the scaffold. To put this matter of Watson's fate in its true light, we must remember that almost at the very time Garnet informed against Watson, the Jesuits were participating in Wright's and
