Thomas Watson (bishop of Lincoln) - Confinement

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 the notorious 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".