Guy Fawkes – The Gunpowder Plot – Bonfire Night - 5 November

The great plan to kill James VI and blow Parliament with gunpowder have Guy Fawkes as leading character.

History

By 1603 Queen Elizabeth I was dying, after being in the throne for 45 years. Her successor would be James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary Queen of Scots who was executed in 1587 by an order signed by Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was protestant and during her reign English Catholics suffered severe persecution because to the Tudors, Catholics were potential traitors. Mass was forbidden for them and they were obliged to attend Anglican Services, those who did not obey, had to pay a fine.
People generally believed that James was more disposed to Catholics because his wife, Queen Anne of Denmark, was a Catholic.
When James was crowned as James I of England, fines were ended. The number of Catholics increased and James was displeased at their becoming stronger. In July 1603 two small Catholic Plots were discovered and James’s position towards them started changing.
In February 1604 he publicly announced his discomfort and expelled priests and Jesuits and reintroduced the fines.
The population was disappointed and many people pretended to be Anglicans, when they really weren’t.
Robert Catesby was a devout Catholic. His father had been imprisoned for harbouring a priest, and he himself had to leave university without a degree, to avoid taking the Protestant Oath of Supremacy. Robert was crucial in recruiting and leading his small band of conspirators.

The Plotters
Their first meeting was on 20 May 1604. Catesby was joined by his friends Thomas Wintour, Jack Wright and Thomas Percy at the Duck and Drake, in the Strand. The fifth person was Guy Fawkes who was originally from York. They discussed their plan to blow up the Parliament and to kill the king on the State opening of Parliament with the hope of having a Catholic monarch in the throne.

They leased a small house in the heart of Westminster, Fawkes was the caretaker, under the false name of John Johnson. Guido Guy Fawkes was an explosives expert who had served with the Spanish Army in the Netherlands and who supplied the gunpowder barrels.

Parliament meetings were postponed to 5 November 1605, the blow up was planned for this day. In less than a year, the number of plotters gradually increased to ten. Robert Keyes, Robert Wintour, John Grant, Thomas Bates (Catesby’s servant) and Kit Wright were all relatives, by blood or marriage, to one or more of the original five conspirators.

The Plan
In March 1605 the group rented a cellar which was underneath the House of Lords.
In the following months 20 barrels of gunpowder were moved in. Fawkes was being followed by English spies who reported to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Robert was James’s first minister and soon the association of Fawkes with Catesby was established.
Over the next two months three more men joined the group: Ambrose Rookwood, Francis Tresham and Sir Everard Digby.
They all went to London in October to review the final details of their plan. Fawkes was to light the fuse and escape to continental Europe. Digby was supposed to kidnap King James’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth and lead a rising in the Midlands.

The Plot comes to light
Everything was ready. But on the night of October 26, an anonymous letter was delivered to Lord Monteagle (Francis Tresham’s Brother in Law) warning him not to attend the state opening of Parliament. Lord Monteagle alerted the authorities and Salisbury ordered Westminster to be searched. They discovered a large amount of firewood in a cellar and, during the second search, Guy Fawkes was found. He was immediately arrested though he said his name was John Johnson; and Thomas Percy’s name was soon linked with the cellar and the rent of the house so a warrant for his arrest was issued.
The plotters escaped from London towards the Midlands. Rookwood arrived there very quickly to warn the others.
Catesby, Rookwood, The Wright brothers, Percy and Bates rode to Warwickshire. As the first bonfires of thanksgiving for the discovery of the plot were being lit in London, Fawkes was being interrogated. By 6 November, Fawkes silence forced James I to give permission to use torture but Fawkes didn’t say much.
In the Midlands, the plotters raided Warwick Castle. They stole some horses and rode to Holbeche House in Staffordshire but when they got there they discovered that the gunpowder was soaked and laid in front of the fire to dry. There was an explosion.

200 men led by Sir Richard Walsh, The High Sheriff of Worcestershire arrived at Holbeche House, the battle was very short. Catesby, The Wrights and Percy died from their wounds and Wintour, Rookwood and Grant were captured.

By December, only Robert Wintour was still free. Under interrogation Bates had admitted confessing the details of the plot to the Jesuit priest Father Tesimond. With the Jesuits now implicated in the “Powder Treason”, the government set about finding them, ransacking Catholic homes in the process. Finally, Wintour was captured.

On 27 January 1606 the trials began. Westminster Hall was crowded as spectators listened to Sir Edward Coke's speech. Under Salisbury’s instructions, the Attorney General lay principal responsibility on the Jesuits, before describing the traditional punishment for traitors: hanging, drawing and quartering. They would be hanged until half-dead, upon which their genitals would be cut off and burned in front of them. Still alive, their bowels and heart would be removed. Finally they would be decapitated and dismembered; their body parts would be publicly displayed, eaten by the birds as they decomposed.

All were found guilty of high treason, Dibgy, Robert Wintour, Bates and Grant were executed on 30 January and the following day, Rookwood, Keyes, Fawkes and Thomas Wintour died.
Catholics suffered due to the Gunpowder Plot as they could not practise Law, serve in the Army or Navy and vote in the Parliamentary elections. In 1829 they were again allowed to vote.

Other Opinions about this plot:
Today some historians agree that the Gunpowder Plot was organized by Robert Cecil who hated the Catholics, the cellar was rented to the conspirators by a close friend of Robert Cecil and the signature on Guy Fawkes’s confession didn’t match his normal signature.

Today in England, each 5 November people burn images of Guy Fawkes and make bonfires to remember the failed attempt to destroy the Parliament.

Copyright Mónica Loreto