Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/38

 1547. He zealously abetted Gardiner in his dispute with the council as to its authority to make religious changes during Edward VI's minority, and is said to have been the medium of communication between the council and Gardiner. He is himself stated to have been imprisoned in the Fleet in 1547 for preaching at Winchester against two reformers, who thereupon complained to Somerset and Sir William Cecil, and to have been liberated with Gardiner on 6 Jan. 1547–8; but there is no record of his imprisonment before 4 Dec. 1550, when he was summoned before the privy council. He was in the Fleet prison in the following year, when he was called as a witness at Gardiner's trial, and examined as to whether the bishop had, in his sermon at St. Paul's on 29 June 1548, maintained the authority of the council or not; he avoided offence by declaring that he had been too far off to hear what Gardiner said (Lit. Rem. of Edward VI, p. cviii). In the same year he assisted Gardiner in preparing his ‘Confutatio Cavillationum,’ a second answer to Cranmer, which was published at Paris in 1552. On one occasion during the reign Watson's life is said to have been saved by John Rough [q. v.], a service to which Rough appealed in vain when brought before Watson and Bonner in Mary's reign. On 3 Dec. 1551 Watson was present at a private discussion at Sir Richard Morison's house on the question of the real presence; his argument is preserved in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS. 102, p. 259), and is abridged in Strype's ‘Life of Cheke’ (pp. 77–86).

On Mary's accession Watson became one of the chief catholic controversialists. On 20 Aug. 1553 he was selected to preach at Paul's Cross, when, to prevent a recurrence of the disturbances at Gilbert Bourne's sermon on the previous Sunday, many of the privy council and a strong guard were present. According to a contemporary but hostile newsletter, ‘his sermon was neither eloquent nor edifying … for he meddled not with the Gospel, nor with the Epistle, nor no part of Scripture’ (William Dalby in Harl. MS. 353, f. 141, where the writer proceeds to report ‘four or five of the chief points of his sermon;’, pp. 41, 332–3; Greyfriars Chron. p. 83; , Chron. ii. 29; Chron. Queen Jane, p. 18). Watson's services as a preacher were, however, constantly in request, and he always drew large audiences (, pp. 128, 131, 132, 166). On 10 May 1554 John Cawood published at London Watson's ‘Twoo notable Sermons made the thirde and fyfte Fridays in Lent last past before the Quenes highnes concerninge the reall presence of Christes body and bloode in the Blessed Sacramente.’ Ridley wrote some annotations on these sermons, which he sent to Bradford (, Works, ii. 207–8;, Works, pp. 538–40); and Robert Crowley [q. v.] in 1569 published ‘A Setting Open of the Subtyle Sophistrie of Thomas Watson … which he used in hys two Sermons … upon the reall presence,’ London, 4to. Crowley prints Watson's sermons passage by passage, with an answer to each (cf., Eccl. Mem. III. i. 115–25). When, in January 1557–8, convocation determined on the publication of a series of expositions of catholic doctrine somewhat similar to the ‘Homilies’ of 1547, Watson revised the sermons he had preached at court in the previous year and published them as ‘Holsome and Catholyke doctryne concerninge the Seven Sacraments of Chrystes Churche … set forthe in the maner of Short Sermons.’ The royal license to Robert Caley, the printer, was dated 30 April 1558 (Lansd. MS. 980, f. 302), and the first edition appeared in June following; a second edition followed on 10 Feb. 1558–9, and a third (described in the ‘British Museum Catalogue’ as the first) in the same month. They were reprinted by Father T. E. Bridgett in 1876 (London, 8vo).

Meanwhile, on 25 Sept. 1553, Watson was commissioned by Gardiner, as chancellor of Cambridge University, to inquire into the religious condition of the colleges (, Parker, i. 82–3), and three days later he was admitted master of St. John's, Lever having fled beyond seas; he was created D.D. in the following year. In the convocation that met at St. Paul's on 23 Oct. 1553 Watson strenuously upheld the Roman catholic interpretation of the real presence against James Haddon [q. v.] and others (part of the disputation is preserved in Harl. MS. 422, ff. 38 sqq.; cf., Works, p. 168; , Hist. iv. 78 sqq.). On 18 Nov. he was presented to the deanery of Durham in succession to Robert Horne (1519?–1580) [q. v.] In April 1554 he was sent to Oxford to dispute with Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and on the 14th was incorporated D.D. in that university. He also took part in the proceedings against Hooper and Rogers, and is said to have urged Gardiner to arrest Dr. Edwin Sandys [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of York. He resigned the mastership of St. John's in May 1554, and on 28 Aug. 1556 was presented to the rectory of Bechingwall All Saints (, xv. 444). On 7 Dec. 1556 Mary issued a license for filling up the see of Lincoln, rendered vacant by the