solitary confinement and great hardships; but in 1594 a considerable change was made in the treatment of the prisoners, either because immediate danger had passed, or, as has been suggested, because the government thought that if the Roman catholics were given rope enough they would hang themselves.
This calculation was to some extent justified by the event; for the license allowed the prisoners was soon followed by the commencement of the famous ‘Wisbech stirs,’ which divided the Roman catholics in England into two bitterly hostile factions. At first their proceedings caused some alarm; the prisoners formed themselves into a sort of college, held discussions and lectures which were frequented not only by outside Romanists, but by protestants, some of whom were converted, and complaints were made that Wisbech had become a dangerous seminary (Harl. MS. 6998, f. 220; Strype, Annals, iv. 273). But divisions soon sprang up between the secular priests and jesuits. The death of Thomas Watson (1513–1584) [q. v.] in 1584 had removed the last bishop in England whose authority Roman catholics could recognise, and that of Cardinal Allen in 1594 left them no constituted authority to obey. Thus an opportunity was afforded the jesuits of arrogating to themselves the spiritual control of the Roman catholics in England. At the same time the free living of the seculars at Wisbech, extending, the jesuits declared, to gross immorality, shocked the jesuits with Weston at their head; while the secular priests are said to have looked with no less suspicion on Weston's devil-hunting and exorcisms.
Soon after his arrival Weston took upon himself to act as censor of his fellow-prisoners, and his intrigues to secure a recognised position of superiority while appearing to be reluctant to assume it are detailed by his opponent Christopher Bagshaw [q. v.] in his ‘True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisbech by Fa. Edmonds alias Weston’ (1601). Weston's own narrative of these events has been significantly torn out of his autobiography preserved among the manuscripts at Stonyhurst. His scheme of government was suspected as an attempt of the jesuits to usurp a superiority over the other Roman catholics, and he failed to secure anything like a unanimous consent to it. He then resolved that separation from the seculars was necessary to the jesuits to preserve their own morals from contagion. Matters seem to have been brought to a head by the introduction of the hobby-horse and mummers at the Christmas festivities in 1594. Eighteen priests seceded with Weston, whom they chose as their ‘agent,’ and wrote a letter to Garnett asking for his confirmation, which was granted. The quarrel became famous throughout England and abroad as the ‘Wisbech stirs,’ and to avoid the scandal caused thereby Garnett eventually induced Weston to resign his ‘agency.’ Thereupon, in order to maintain the influence of the jesuits, Parsons suggested the appointment as archpriest of George Blackwell [q. v.], who, although a secular, was a devotee of the Society of Jesus. This expedient, however, only widened the dispute into the ‘Archpriest controversy’ [see art. Watson, William, (1559?–1603)].
Meanwhile Weston was transferred from Wisbech to the Tower of London towards the end of 1598. He remained in close confinement until the accession of James I, when he was given the option of taking the oath of allegiance or banishment. He chose the latter, and embarked on 13 May 1603, proceeding by way of Calais to St. Omer, and thence to Rome. After spending some months at Valladolid in 1604 he went to Seville, where in 1605 he was made spiritual father of the English College, lecturing also on theology, Hebrew, and Greek. In June 1614 he was appointed rector of the English college at Valladolid, where he died on 9 June 1615.
A portrait of Weston hangs in the college at Valladolid, and another in St. Andrew's novitiate at Rome; the latter is reproduced as a frontispiece to Father Morris's ‘Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers’ (2nd ser.) Weston's head is preserved at the novitiate at Roehampton.
[Towards the end of his life Weston wrote an autobiography, a copy of which in a very defective state is preserved at Stonyhurst; so much of it as is legible is printed by Father John Morris (1826–1893) [q. v.], in his elaborate Life of Weston (Troubles, 2nd ser. pp. 1–284); Morris also used a life of Weston written in 1615 by Father de Peralta, rector of the English College at Seville. Besides these, the most useful authorities are Mr. T. G. Law's Jesuits and Seculars, 1889, Archpriest Controversy (Camden Soc. 1896–8), and article in Nineteenth Century, vol. xxxv. See also Foley's Records of the English Province; Letters and Mem. of Cardinal Allen, p. 378; Douai Diaries, pp. 5, 18, 24, 103; Simpson's Life of Campion, ed. 1896, p. 113; Acts of the Privy Council; Cal. State Papers, Dom.; Cal. Hatfield MSS.; Diego de Yepes's Historia Particular de la Persecucion, Madrid, 1599; Bridgewater's Concertatio Eccl. 1594; Harsnett's Declaration of Popish Impostures, 1603; Bagshaw's True Relation, 1601,
