Showing posts with label Gunpowder Plot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gunpowder Plot. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2025
Wednesday, November 05, 2025
Gunpowder Plot
conspiracy, England [circa 1603–1605]
Britannica Editors
Nov. 3, 2025 •History
Top Questions
What was the Gunpowder Plot?
Why did the Gunpowder Plot take place?
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The true story behind Guy Fawkes DayDescription of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.See all videos for this article
Gunpowder Plot, the conspiracy of English Roman Catholics to blow up Parliament and King James I, his queen, and his eldest son on November 5, 1605. The leader of the plot, Robert Catesby, together with his four coconspirators—Thomas Winter, Thomas Percy, John Wright, and Guy Fawkes—were zealous Roman Catholics angered by James’s refusal to grant more religious toleration to Catholics. They apparently hoped that the confusion that would follow the murder of the king, his ministers, and the members of Parliament would provide an opportunity for the English Catholics to take over the country.
Assembling the conspirators
Catesby had conceived of the plot as early as May 1603, when he told Percy, in reply to the latter’s declaration of his intention to kill the king, that he was “thinking of a most sure way.” Subsequently, on or about November 1, 1603, Catesby sent a message to his cousin Robert Winter at Huddington, near Worcester, to come to London, but Winter refused. On the arrival of a second urgent summons shortly afterward, he obeyed, and at a house in Lambeth, probably in January 1604, he and John Wright were initiated by Catesby into the plot to blow up Parliament. Before putting this plan into motion, however, it was decided to try a “quiet way” to obtain the repeal of the Penal Laws, a body of laws that essentially criminalized Roman Catholicism. Winter was sent to Flanders to enlist the aid of Juan de Velasco, duke of Frias and constable of Castile, who was conducting the negotiations for a peace between England and Spain. Winter, having secured nothing but vain promises from the constable, returned to England about the end of April, bringing with him Fawkes, a man devoted to the Roman Catholic cause and recommended for undertaking perilous adventures.
Monday, November 04, 2024
Guy Fawkes Day: A Brief History
Guy Fawkes Day: A Brief History
The British holiday, celebrated with fireworks and bonfires, commemorates the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
By: Jesse Greenspan
Updated: July 25, 2023 | Original: November 5, 2012
Teesside Archive/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Observed in the United Kingdom every year on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day—also called Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night—commemorates a failed assassination attempt from more than 400 years ago.
On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes and a group of radical English Catholics tried to assassinate King James I by blowing up Parliament's House of Lords. The plot went awry and all of the conspirators were executed. Soon after, Britons began to celebrate Fawkes' demise and the survival of their king by burning effigies, lighting bonfires and setting off fireworks—a tradition that has continued to this day.
British Parliament
Background to the Gunpowder Plot
Catholicism in England was heavily repressed under Queen Elizabeth I, particularly after the pope excommunicated her in 1570. During her reign, dozens of priests were put to death, and Catholics could not even legally celebrate Mass or be married according to their own rites. As a result, many Catholics had high hopes when King James I took the throne upon Elizabeth’s death in 1603. James’ wife, Anne, is believed to have previously converted to Catholicism, and his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was Elizabeth’s Catholic arch-rival prior to being executed. There were even rumors, inspired by his diplomatic overtures to the pope, that James himself would become Catholic.
It soon became clear, however, that James did not support religious tolerance for Catholics. In 1604 he publicly condemned Catholicism as a superstition, ordered all Catholic priests to leave England and expressed concern that the number of Catholics was increasing. He also largely continued with the repressive policies of his predecessor, such as fines for those refusing to attend Protestant services.
English Catholics had organized several failed conspiracies against Elizabeth, and these continued under James. In 1603 a few priests and laymen hatched the so-called Bye Plot to kidnap James, only to be turned in by fellow Catholics. Another related conspiracy that year, known as the Main Plot, sought to kill James and install his cousin on the throne. Then, in May 1604, a handful of Catholic dissidents—Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby, Tom Wintour, Jack Wright and Thomas Percy—met at the Duck and Drake Inn in London, where Catesby proposed a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder. Afterward, all five men purportedly swore an oath of secrecy upon a prayer book.
Observed in the United Kingdom every year on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day—also called Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night—commemorates a failed assassination attempt from more than 400 years ago.
On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes and a group of radical English Catholics tried to assassinate King James I by blowing up Parliament's House of Lords. The plot went awry and all of the conspirators were executed. Soon after, Britons began to celebrate Fawkes' demise and the survival of their king by burning effigies, lighting bonfires and setting off fireworks—a tradition that has continued to this day.
British Parliament
Background to the Gunpowder Plot
Catholicism in England was heavily repressed under Queen Elizabeth I, particularly after the pope excommunicated her in 1570. During her reign, dozens of priests were put to death, and Catholics could not even legally celebrate Mass or be married according to their own rites. As a result, many Catholics had high hopes when King James I took the throne upon Elizabeth’s death in 1603. James’ wife, Anne, is believed to have previously converted to Catholicism, and his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was Elizabeth’s Catholic arch-rival prior to being executed. There were even rumors, inspired by his diplomatic overtures to the pope, that James himself would become Catholic.
It soon became clear, however, that James did not support religious tolerance for Catholics. In 1604 he publicly condemned Catholicism as a superstition, ordered all Catholic priests to leave England and expressed concern that the number of Catholics was increasing. He also largely continued with the repressive policies of his predecessor, such as fines for those refusing to attend Protestant services.
English Catholics had organized several failed conspiracies against Elizabeth, and these continued under James. In 1603 a few priests and laymen hatched the so-called Bye Plot to kidnap James, only to be turned in by fellow Catholics. Another related conspiracy that year, known as the Main Plot, sought to kill James and install his cousin on the throne. Then, in May 1604, a handful of Catholic dissidents—Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby, Tom Wintour, Jack Wright and Thomas Percy—met at the Duck and Drake Inn in London, where Catesby proposed a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder. Afterward, all five men purportedly swore an oath of secrecy upon a prayer book.
The Gunpowder Plot Is Hatched—Then Foiled
Eight other conspirators would later join what became known as the Gunpowder Plot. But although Catesby was the ringleader, Fawkes has garnered most of the publicity over the past 400-plus years. Born in 1570 in York, England, Fawkes spent about a decade fighting for Spain against Protestant rebels in the Spanish-controlled Netherlands. He also personally petitioned the king of Spain for help in starting an English rebellion against James. According to writings in the Spanish archives, Fawkes believed the English king was a heretic who would drive out his Catholic subjects. Fawkes also apparently expressed strong anti-Scottish prejudices.
By 1605, Fawkes was calling himself Guido rather than Guy. He also used the alias John Johnson while serving as caretaker of a cellar—located just below the House of Lords—that the plotters had leased in order to stockpile gunpowder. Under the plan, Fawkes would light a fuse on November 5, 1605, during the opening of a new session of Parliament. James, his eldest son, the House of Lords and the House of Commons would all be blown sky-high. In the meantime, as Fawkes escaped by boat across the River Thames, his fellow conspirators would start an uprising in the English Midlands, kidnap James’ daughter Elizabeth, install her as a puppet queen and eventually marry her off to a Catholic, thereby restoring the Catholic monarchy.
Gunpowder Plot
Robert Catesby What became known as the Gunpowder Plot was organized by Robert Catesby, a devout English Catholic whose father had been persecuted by Queen Elizabeth I for refusing to conform to the Church of England. Guy Fawkes, born in York in 1570, was a convert to Catholicism, and his religious zeal led him to […]
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On October 26, an anonymous letter advising a Catholic sympathizer to avoid the State Opening of Parliament alerted the authorities to the existence of a plot. To this day, no one knows for sure who wrote the letter. Some historians have even suggested that it was fabricated and that the authorities already knew of the Gunpowder Plot, only letting it progress as an excuse to further crack down on Catholicism.
Either way, a search party found Fawkes skulking in his cellar around midnight on November 4, with matches in his pocket and 36 barrels of gunpowder stacked next to him. For Fawkes, the plot’s failure could be blamed on “the devil and not God.” He was taken to the Tower of London and tortured upon the special order of King James. Soon after, his co-conspirators were likewise arrested, except for four, including Catesby, who died in a shootout with English troops.
Fawkes and his surviving co-conspirators were all found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death in January 1606 by hanging, drawing and quartering. A Jesuit priest was also executed a few months later for his alleged involvement, even as new laws banned Catholics from voting in elections, practicing law or serving in the military. In fact, Catholics were not fully emancipated in England until the 19th century.
Guy Fawkes Day Becomes a Holiday
After the plot was revealed, Londoners began lighting celebratory bonfires, and in January 1606 an act of Parliament designated November 5 as a day of thanksgiving. Guy Fawkes Day festivities soon spread as far as the American colonies, where they became known as Pope Day. In keeping with the anti-Catholic sentiment of the time, British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic would burn an effigy of the pope.
That tradition completely died out in the United States by the 19th century, whereas in Britain Guy Fawkes Day became a time to get together with friends and family, set off fireworks, light bonfires, attend parades and burn effigies of Fawkes. Children traditionally wheeled around their effigies demanding a “penny for the Guy” (a similar custom to Halloween trick-or-treating) and imploring crowds to “remember, remember the fifth of November.”
Guy Fawkes himself, meanwhile, has undergone something of a makeover. Once known as a notorious traitor, he is now portrayed in some circles as a revolutionary hero, largely due to the influence of the 1980s graphic novel “V for Vendetta” and the 2005 movie of the same name, which depicted a protagonist who wore a Guy Fawkes mask while battling a future fascist government in Britain.
Guy Fawkes masks even cropped up at Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City and elsewhere. “Every generation reinvents Guy Fawkes to suit their needs,” explained historian William B. Robison of Southeastern Louisiana University. “But Fawkes was just one of the flunkies. It really should be Robert Catesby Day.”
Friday, November 04, 2022
Saturday, November 05, 2011
In UK, Guy Fawkes remembered with protests
The Associated Press
LONDON — "Remember, remember, the fifth of November." The 400-year-old story of Guy Fawkes and other plotters' failure to blow up London's Parliament is traditionally marked in Britain with this schoolchildren's rhyme, bonfires and mulled wine at fun fairs.
But this year Guy Fawkes Day is taking on a distinctly political flavor, as protesters inspired by the folk hero marched on Parliament — though with entirely different motivations than the 17th-century activist.
Fawkes is a household historical name in Britain for plotting with 12 other conspirators to blow up Parliament with explosives, assassinate King James I and install a Catholic monarch in the botched "Gunpowder Plot" of 1605.
The conspiracy fell apart when authorities found out about it and caught Fawkes guarding barrels of gunpowder in the cellar of Parliament. Fawkes was tried as a traitor, and the king's narrow escape has been celebrated every year on Nov. 5, with fireworks and the burning of effigies known as "guys" across the country.
Although not widely known outside Britain, the folk hero's story has recently been seized upon as a potent symbol against state power with the rise of two modern anti-government movements.
Stylized Guy Fawkes plastic masks — with a clownish, sinister mustachioed smile and features loosely based on drawings of Fawke — have been worn by hundreds of protesters from the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street movement from New York to London. And before that, members of the international rogue collective of "hackivists" known as Anonymous had worn the now instantly recognizable masks during protests against the Church of Scientology.
The design of the masks came from the comic book and movie "V for Vendetta," which features a violent, anarchist antihero who fashions himself a modern day Guy Fawkes and rebels against a fictional fascist government.
On Saturday, a group including many who wore the same masks tried to march into London's Parliament Square, but it was blocked by a heavy police presence. Many of the activists were the same people behind the Occupy London movement, which has set up camp outside the iconic St. Paul's Cathedral for weeks to protest social inequality and the excesses of the banking industry.
Meanwhile Anonymous, which has made a name for itself by launching cyber attacks on government and large corporate websites, also seized on Guy Fawkes Day by backing an online campaign urging people to collectively withdraw their money from large banks Saturday in a bid to show their anger against the banking sector. Activists have dubbed Saturday "Bank Transfer Day" and "Operation Cashback."
In Britain, the nursery rhyme "Remember, remember, the fifth of November/ Gunpowder, treason and plot" is familiar to most as a warning that treason would never be forgiven.
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November 05, 2011 01:26 PM EDT
What if Guy Fawkes's Gunpowder Plot had succeeded in 1605?
World history would have been very different – with a guillotine in Trafalgar Square, no Big Macs and Tony Blair as president of Britain.
Guy Fawkes and fellow conspirators planning the gunpowder plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, circa 1605 Photo: GETTY
By Max Davidson
7:30AM GMT 05 Nov 2011
What if Guy Fawkes had pulled it off? Even four centuries after the Gunpowder Plot was foiled, the hypothesis grabs the imagination.
James I blown to smithereens at the opening of Parliament. Hundreds of MPs and peers murdered. The ruling class of England wiped out at a stroke. Pandemonium on the streets. A crater hundreds of yards wide in what is now Parliament Square.
As a terrorist atrocity, striking at the heart of a nation, it would have dwarfed 9/11. Guy Fawkes would not have been a harmless bumbler, recreated in pillowcases stuffed with leaves and chucked on bonfires, but a hate figure to rival Osama bin Laden.
Lovers of counter-factual history – the things that would have happened if events had taken a slightly different turn – have had a field day with the plot that was so dramatically thwarted in November 1605.
It was a Catholic plot aimed at engineering a transition to a Catholic monarchy; but Catholics constituted such a tiny proportion of the population that it had little realistic chance of success.
Even if the Houses of Parliament had been blown sky-high, the scale of the carnage would surely have provoked a backlash against Catholics by the Protestant majority, similar to the backlash against Muslims after 9/11. The England that emerged might have been a nastier, less tolerant society, which might in turn have made the development of a liberal constitutional monarchy less likely.
Depending how things had panned out after that – and during the Civil War, if there had been a Civil War – we might have had our own version of the French Revolution in the late 18th century, with a guillotine in Trafalgar Square and tricoteuses from Kent and Sussex doing cross-stitch in Whitehall. Instead of our dear Queen, we might be lumbered with Tony Blair as president. Chills the blood, doesn’t it?
One piquant aspect of this historical parlour game is that, if James I had been assassinated by Guy Fawkes, along with his eldest son Henry, the next in line would have been Charles I, who was only four and would have needed supervising 24/7 by a no-nonsense nanny with a good grasp of the English constitution.
Another likely consequence of James being assassinated is that Shakespeare would never have produced Macbeth, which was written to curry favour with James and probably first performed in 1606, in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. The King James Bible, work on which started in 1604, would probably have survived a successful Gunpowder Plot, although it would be called the King Charles Bible, which doesn’t have the same ring. But can we be so sure about other achievements of James’s reign?
If there had been constitutional upheaval in the years following 1605, it is hard to believe that the colonisation of the New World – Jamestown, Virginia, the first major English settlement in America, was established in 1607 – would have proceeded at the same rate. The French might have stolen a march on us, the United States might have become Les États Unis and Americans might now eat croissants rather than Big Macs.
There would be no baseball World Series, just boules in the town square, and given the French love of wine, there would certainly have been no Prohibition, which would have put the kibosh on that Prohibition-era film classic Some Like It Hot – which would have robbed Marilyn Monroe of her most famous role, which might have meant Jack Kennedy having an affair with someone else, which could have impacted on the Cuban missile crisis...
So many what-ifs. So many might-have-beens. Would MPs have fiddled their expenses if, somewhere in their collective consciousness, there lingered a folk memory of Parliament being razed to the ground in a bonfire of the vanities? Would we take Parliament more – or less – seriously?
Perhaps the one stone-cold certainty is that, if the plot had succeeded, Bonfire Night would never have evolved in its present form. Generations of children would have been spared the indignity of sitting on street corners, in front of a padded sack with a pumpkin on top, squeaking ''Penny for the Guy’’. We would have had fewer over-the-top firework displays that cost millions and are over in minutes. And the Health and Safety Executive would have had to find something else to fuss about – which is perhaps scariest of all.
By Max Davidson
7:30AM GMT 05 Nov 2011
What if Guy Fawkes had pulled it off? Even four centuries after the Gunpowder Plot was foiled, the hypothesis grabs the imagination.
James I blown to smithereens at the opening of Parliament. Hundreds of MPs and peers murdered. The ruling class of England wiped out at a stroke. Pandemonium on the streets. A crater hundreds of yards wide in what is now Parliament Square.
As a terrorist atrocity, striking at the heart of a nation, it would have dwarfed 9/11. Guy Fawkes would not have been a harmless bumbler, recreated in pillowcases stuffed with leaves and chucked on bonfires, but a hate figure to rival Osama bin Laden.
Lovers of counter-factual history – the things that would have happened if events had taken a slightly different turn – have had a field day with the plot that was so dramatically thwarted in November 1605.
It was a Catholic plot aimed at engineering a transition to a Catholic monarchy; but Catholics constituted such a tiny proportion of the population that it had little realistic chance of success.
Even if the Houses of Parliament had been blown sky-high, the scale of the carnage would surely have provoked a backlash against Catholics by the Protestant majority, similar to the backlash against Muslims after 9/11. The England that emerged might have been a nastier, less tolerant society, which might in turn have made the development of a liberal constitutional monarchy less likely.
Depending how things had panned out after that – and during the Civil War, if there had been a Civil War – we might have had our own version of the French Revolution in the late 18th century, with a guillotine in Trafalgar Square and tricoteuses from Kent and Sussex doing cross-stitch in Whitehall. Instead of our dear Queen, we might be lumbered with Tony Blair as president. Chills the blood, doesn’t it?
One piquant aspect of this historical parlour game is that, if James I had been assassinated by Guy Fawkes, along with his eldest son Henry, the next in line would have been Charles I, who was only four and would have needed supervising 24/7 by a no-nonsense nanny with a good grasp of the English constitution.
Another likely consequence of James being assassinated is that Shakespeare would never have produced Macbeth, which was written to curry favour with James and probably first performed in 1606, in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. The King James Bible, work on which started in 1604, would probably have survived a successful Gunpowder Plot, although it would be called the King Charles Bible, which doesn’t have the same ring. But can we be so sure about other achievements of James’s reign?
If there had been constitutional upheaval in the years following 1605, it is hard to believe that the colonisation of the New World – Jamestown, Virginia, the first major English settlement in America, was established in 1607 – would have proceeded at the same rate. The French might have stolen a march on us, the United States might have become Les États Unis and Americans might now eat croissants rather than Big Macs.
There would be no baseball World Series, just boules in the town square, and given the French love of wine, there would certainly have been no Prohibition, which would have put the kibosh on that Prohibition-era film classic Some Like It Hot – which would have robbed Marilyn Monroe of her most famous role, which might have meant Jack Kennedy having an affair with someone else, which could have impacted on the Cuban missile crisis...
So many what-ifs. So many might-have-beens. Would MPs have fiddled their expenses if, somewhere in their collective consciousness, there lingered a folk memory of Parliament being razed to the ground in a bonfire of the vanities? Would we take Parliament more – or less – seriously?
Perhaps the one stone-cold certainty is that, if the plot had succeeded, Bonfire Night would never have evolved in its present form. Generations of children would have been spared the indignity of sitting on street corners, in front of a padded sack with a pumpkin on top, squeaking ''Penny for the Guy’’. We would have had fewer over-the-top firework displays that cost millions and are over in minutes. And the Health and Safety Executive would have had to find something else to fuss about – which is perhaps scariest of all.
.
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
A Face You Can't Forget
During the OccupyWallStreet demonstrations many of the protesters have worn a peculiar mask. This mask has become very popular with the growing anti-establishment movement worldwide. I first noticed this trend when there were riots throughout Europe, and many of the activists wore this particular mask. An activist Hacker group called Anonymous has issued press release videos with one of its representaives wearing such a masks.
So, taking these factors into account: Can we be very far from the truth when we speculate who could be fomenting this civil unrest - when the activist wear these masks?
Hmm?
By the way "V" stands for Vendetta; An Italian word for Vengeance, vindicate, (old quarrel)...
Arsenio.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
The Gunpowder Plot - Roman Catholic Jesuit Conspiracy
Uploaded by bibleortraditions on Apr 28, 2008
The Gunpowder Plot, 1605 - Roman Catholic Jesuit Conspiracy.
In 1605, young men planned to blow up
the Houses of Parliament. Among them was
Guy Fawkes, Britain's most notorious traitor.
PART TWO:
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