Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/28

24 with their purpose.' 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, 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, who resisted the assumption of ecclesiastical authority in England by the Society of Jesus. The two