Note: “Remember, Remember The 5th November” is a guest post about Guy Fawkes Day by fellow blogger Stuart.
Here in the UK, we annually celebrate bonfire night which commemorates the occasion of a failed assassination attempt against the Protestant King of the country by his persecuted Catholic subjects. In England, in 1534 the King Henry VIII had fallen out with the Pope and the Catholic faith due to the Pope’s refusal to grant him a divorce and annul his marriage to his wife Catherine of Aragon. He subsequently became the head of the Church of England, a Protestant faith, which was separated from Rome and established as the faith to be practiced by the country. This period of religious change in England is known as the Reformation. Fast forward a few years to 1605 and there was a almighty intolerance towards practicing Catholics. They were persecuted by the government’s regime and if they practiced mass they faced the death penalty for heresy. Priests were publicly executed in a bid to eradicate the faith of Catholicism.
Resulting from this a group of individuals conspired to attack the King whilst he was in parliament. They discussed their plans in the safe haven in Flanders, Belgium which was a refuge for English Catholics. They conspired and plotted to kill the Protestant King and reestablish a Catholic state in England once more.
The Protestant King is the Head of the Church of England, this is still prevalent today as the country has been under Protestant control since the Act of Supremacy, to this day no catholic can truly be the king or queen of this country as they would also be the head of the Church of England which is a Protestant faith. In the aftermath of this attempt to dethrone the King and restore the Catholic nation, the Bill of Rights in 1689 was drawn up. Parliament declared that no future monarch could be a Catholic or be married to a Catholic. This provision was reaffirmed in the 1701 Act of Settlement and remains in force to this day.
The story of the attempt is briefly as follows;
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious persecution.
The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which King James’s nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was to be installed as the new head of state. Catesby is suspected by historians to have embarked on the scheme after hopes of greater religious tolerance under King James I had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow conspirators were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guido Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives.
On 26 October (my birthday) 1605 an anonymous letter of warning was sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, a Catholic member of Parliament, who immediately showed it to the authorities. During a search of the House of Lords on the evening of 4 November 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble—and arrested. Hearing that the plot had been discovered, most of the conspirators fled from London while trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a last stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and a posse of his men at Holbeche House; in the ensuing gunfight Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the surviving conspirators, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Some details of the assassination attempt were allegedly known by the principal Jesuit of England, Henry Garnet. Although Garnet was convicted of high treason and put to death, doubt has been cast on how much he really knew. As the plot’s existence was revealed to him through confession, Garnet was prevented from informing the authorities by the absolute confidentiality of the confessional. Although anti-Catholic legislation was introduced soon after the discovery of the plot, many important and loyal Catholics remained in high office during the rest of King James I’s reign. The thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot was commemorated for many years afterwards by special sermons and other public events such as the ringing of church bells, which evolved into the British variant of Bonfire Night of today.
About This Guest Post:
Growing up, they had the British curriculum/academic system at my school. So we learnt quite a bit about the history behind Guy Fawkes Day and how the incident occurred. But when Stuart reached out to me and suggested I share his post on here, I thought that was a great idea. I know not too many people learn about Guys Fawkes Day, Guy Fawkes and what he went through. And since Stuart had done so much research to write this amazing post, I knew it would be a good idea to share it.
You can view the original post on Stuart’s blog. And do check out his other posts too while you’re there. We’ve been friends for years and I’ve really liked a lot of his posts.
I hope you found this post interesting. Do you know about Guy Fawkes Day and why it became a day? Were you aware of the sad history behind it? Let me know in the comments below because I would love to hear from you.
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