On this day in 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested for planning to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. Guy (or Guido) Fawkes was born in York in 1570 and soon converted to Catholicism, which inspired him to fight in the Thirty Years’ War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers. His Catholic zeal led to his involvement with Robert Catesby in England, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarchy by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. On November 5th 1605, following an anonymous warning letter sent to the authorities, Fawkes was found in a rented undercroft under the Palace of Westminster guarding the 36 barrels of gunpowder the conspirators had stockpiled there. Fawkes was then brutally tortured, and ultimately divulged the details of the Catesby plot against the monarchy, his signature on his confession a barely-evident scrawl after his long ordeal. Fawkes and his co-conspirators were hanged on 30 and 31 January 1606 in front of jeering spectators. The failure of the plot is commemorated in Britain every November 5th; this tradition began soon after the original plot and was even enshrined in law until 1859. Today, people across Britain still burn Fawkes’s effigy on a bonfire and set off fireworks to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot 410 years ago.
Remember, remember! The fifth of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason, why the Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!
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