or the Treason of the Priests. Those involved were not in fact exclusively Catholic priests: Thomas Grey, 15th Baron Grey de Wilton was a Puritan layman who became drawn in, though the plot never went farther than far-fetched discussion. Another lay conspirator was Sir Griffin Markham. While they may have had in common a wish for religious toleration, their motivations were varied. Watson wished to have no more fines for recusancy levied. Another plank in the platform of the Bye Plot was the removal of certain ministers of the king. To the extent that these matters can be clarified, the Main Plot that had been laid in parallel wished also for regime change, with James replaced on the throne by Arbella Stuart. Events of 1603 King James moved south at a leisurely pace, having reached Theobalds House in Hertfordshire on 3 May. The scheme, such as it was, depended on Markham's view in May that there was a "Scottish precedent" for seizing the person of the king for political advantage. It was in late May or early June (on Gerard's own account) that someone (probably Markham) tried to recruit the Jesuit John Gerard. Gerard's reaction was negative, and he wrote to Henry Garnet and George Blackwell asking them to put a spoke in the wheels of the plot. June The date set by Watson for the plot to be carried out was 24 June. This was St John Baptist's Day, and a collar day; in the planning of the plot its significance was that courtiers would be at court and regaled ceremonially. As the date and midsummer approached, Gerard had contacted a Scottish courtier asking that he make the king aware, while also Blackwell, the official head of the English Catholic secular clergy operating from hiding, took roundabout steps. Blackwell's communication outran Gerard's. Blackwell revealed something of the plot to the government through an intermediary, the recusant John Gage, who had married Margaret, the daughter of Sir Thomas Copley. When Gage wrote to Sir Robert Cecil, on 28 June, Cecil was already aware of plotting. The Catholic returned exile and conspirator Anthony Copley had also written to Blackwell about the Bye Plot; he was Sir Thomas Copley's son and therefore Gage's brother-in-law. Blackwell had written to Gage; Cecil assumed there was something more behind these exchanges, so that he asked Gage to produce Blackwell before the Council. It has been