#gun powder plot

“Remember, remember the fifth of November..."⁠⁠Guy Fawkes is said to have been carrying this iron lantern when he was arrested in the cellars underneath the Houses of Parliament on the night of 4–5 November 1605. Fawkes and his conspirators planned to ignite barrels of gunpowder concealed under firewood in the cellar during the state opening of Parliament, with the aim of blowing up the chamber and killing the Protestant King James I. Thanks to an anonymous warning, the cellars were searched, Fawkes was discovered and the plot failed.

⁠⁠Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London, and later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure.⁠⁠

The 5th of November, but why?

Whilst it is now a visual spectacle of arial pyrotechnics that captivates adults and children alike,

it is actually an annual UK celebration of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A daring plan by a group of recusant papalists who conspired to blow up Parliament, kill King James I and bring about an uprising intended to return a catholic monarch, or one with papal sympathies, upon the throne.

Alhough there were 13 conspriritors it was Fawkes who was found and arrested whilst guarding the explosives the plotters had placed, in the leased undercroft, beneath the House of Lords.

An Act of Parliament was subsequently passed, nominating the 5th of November as a day of thanksgiving for the "joyful deliverance of James I".

Bonfire night, as it is now known, is celebrated all over the UK except St Peters School in York; they do not burn a "Guy" out of respect of one of their own. Guido Fawkes, as he was also known, was born and educated in York.

In the 17th-century, it was traditional for traitors to be hung, drawn and quartered in public. The "hanging" was not designed to kill and the accused would still be alive for the remainder of the sentance. However, whilst waiting to be hung, Fawkes leapt off the gallows and broke his neck, thus avoiding having his stomach sliced open and his testicles cut off in public. His body was still quartered and despatched to the 'four corners of the kingdom' as a warning to others.

It is recorded, that after 2 days of questioning and tourture Guy Fawkes finally broke and acknowledged the plot and his conspiritors, some who were now travelling around the country ready to raise a rebellion.

He admitted to planning to blow up the House of Lords and he regretted his failure. His resilience earned him the praise of King James I, who said "Fawkes possessed 'a Roman resolution."

According to James Sharpe, professor of history at the University of York, Guy Fawkes, was probably "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions"!

Bonfire Night night went without a Bang in Tatlisu

he was part of a Catholic plot to kill a Protestant King and, mainly, Protestant parliament members, along with blowing up the entire building they were in.  They weren't assassins, ready to jump out of a hay bail, kill the king and peacefully but a Catholic monarch on the throne.  They were going to blow up a building and signal for a Spanish invasion.  The occupation would have been chaotic and brutal.

I know it was 500 years ago and I know you're all excited about V for Vendetta but Guy Fawkes, by modern standards, would be called a terrorist.  Wearing a Fawkes mask for public protest is like wearing an Osama bin Laden mask.  I'm not even being hyperbolic.

"Yeah I'd love to blow up my government".. really?  Would you?  Because as I recall thirteen years ago some conspirators flew planes into two major financial buildings, one into a country's defence headquarters, and the last plane was grounded before it could reach it's destination of either the residency of said country's leader OR that country's own version of the Houses of Parliament... y'know the same building Guy Fawkes wanted to blow up

and the reaction worldwide to those attacks was almost universal shock and an abhorrence of the perpetrators... and resulted in a war we're still not out of, not to mention all the smaller acts of violence that have occurred against people just for the coincidence of being the same religion/colour/nationality as the group who hijacked the planes.

If that was the modern reaction to a successful attack, do you really want to imagine what it would have been like 500 years ago?  This is why we celebrate Guy Fawkes Night.  It's not about celebrating a man that 'stood up to his government', it's a celebration that he and his coconspirators didn't succeed.  Kind of like how almost the entire of America celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden.

The Gunpowder Plot

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. Kiriosity explores some explosive facts (and Fawkes) about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605; the attempted assasination against King James I of England by a group of English Catholics.

Gunpower Plot on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowde…

Guy Fawkes wanted to blow up Parliament and King James because he wanted there to be a Catholic King and make Catholicism the official religion in Britain. He wasn't anti government overall, just against a Protestant one because he was a zealous Catholic.

So wearing those masks doesn't even make sense