Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson (1515 – 27 September 1584) was a Catholic Bishop, notable among Catholics for his descriptions of the Protestant Reformation. Historian Albert Pollard described Watson as "one of the chief Catholic controversialists" of Mary Tudor's reign. Early life Watson was born near Durham in 1515. He grew up in a monastic world at Nun Stainton, near Durham. Little about his earliest schooling is known, but for entrance to Cambridge University, he would have studied at Durham's Priory School. The Rites of Durham, written in about 1593, recalls life in Durham Cathedral before the Dissolution. Watson describes the school, and the last schoolmaster, Robert Hartburne, as a venerable and learned monk, always looking for a bright pupil who was "apt to learning, and did apply his book, and had a pregnant wit with all" to groom for university entrance. He left for St John's College, Cambridge in 1529. The majority of staff and students of the university, under their Chancellor, John Fisher, were clerics or future clerics. Watson received his B.A. in 1532/3 and his M.A. in 1536. Absalom In response to his oath of allegiance to Henry VIII, Watson wrote an unpublished five-act play. The play, written in Latin verse and completed at around 1540, was based on Absalom's revolt against his father David described in the Old Testament. The manuscript was hidden and lost until it was rediscovered among 16th century humanist manuscripts in the British Museum in 1963.