of their authority and "extinguished" as a hierarchy. On 25 June Watson was tried, found guilty, deprived of his bishopric, and given a life sentence. One by one Elizabeth replaced the Catholic bishops with Protestants. Confinement After a time in the Tower of London, Watson was placed in the custody of his old adversaries: Grindal, now Bishop of London; Guest, now Bishop of Rochester; and Richard Cox, now Bishop of Ely. Ten years later, in 1570 the pope finally excommunicated Elizabeth. Watson was returned to the Tower. When interrogated about the excommunication, his only regret was that it might create greater hardship for Catholics. He was kept in the Tower until the following year, and then returned to his former places of confinement. He was transferred from the custody of the Bishop of Rochester to that of the Bishop of Ely in 1580, and committed to imprisonment in Wisbech Castle. The Bishop of Ely had been ordered to turn his palace Wisbech Castle into an internment centre for Catholics, and for the first time in years Watson had friends around him. These included his old friend John Feckenham, a fellow student of his at Cambridge and the last Abbot of Westminster. Along with former Marian priests there were newly arrived seminary priests and Jesuits. Watson's contacts now widened, and he appears to have exercised some sort of episcopal ministry "in vinculis". Death In March 1581 he was accused of corresponding with Catholics in Portugal, but his health and eyesight were deteriorating. He died almost blind at the age of sixty-nine. He had been confined for twenty-five years, ending his days in Wisbech Castle on 15 October 1584, and was buried in the parish church of Wisbech. His epitaph is given in the Athenae Cantabrigiensis (1858): Thomas Watson, sometime Master of St John's College Cambridge, Dean of Durham and Bishop of Lincoln: "Orator Facundas, Bonus Poeta, Solidus Theologus et Concionator Celebris." "An eloquent speaker, a gifted poet, a sound theologian and a celebrated preacher." References Sources External links People from County Durham (district) 16th-century English Roman Catholic bishops Bishops of Lincoln Deans of Durham Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Masters of St John's College, Cambridge 1515 births 1584 deaths