Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
For those of you who may have missed (in my opinion) the most British celebration of the year, last Sunday was Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes Night/5th November. As I was stood in a cold and muddy Battersea Park marvelling at fireworks perfectly synchronised to the theme tune of ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ I was left thinking to myself “How did a foiled plot to blow up our houses of Parliament turn into an annual celebration with fireworks, bonfires and over-priced funfair rides?” To figure out the answer to this oh-so-important question we must whizz back in time to the Dog and Duck pub near the Strand in London on the 20th of May 1604.
Here the scene was set for that first fateful meeting between a group of men who were soon to become co-conspirators of high treason. The posse was headed up by the charismatic Robert Catesby along with Thomas Winter, John Wright, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes. Over the next year the group grew to an inauspicious 13 with one characteristic binding them together – their Catholic faith.
Anyone who has studied England during the 1600’s will know religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics were fraught. With newly crowned King James I in 1603, Catholics hoped the change in leadership would grant them greater religious tolerance but alas King James was as staunchly in support of Protestant rule as his predecessor Elizabeth I. And so, the plot prepared on that fateful night in 1604 aimed to blow up the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) during the state opening of Parliament, killing MPs and the King to clear a way for reestablishing Catholic rule in England.
The specifics of the plot are what makes this story so entertaining. Unlike our Parliament today which is surrounded by rows of security guards and cameras, the parliament of the 17th Century was much less fortified. One of the conspirators, Thomas Percy, was able to purchase the storeroom below the House of Lords. This was jammed full of 36 barrels of gunpowder hidden behind piles of wood – high tech right?
The story goes that Guy Fawkes was carrying out final checks on the gunpowder late in the night of the 4th of November 1605. All was running smoothly until a precautionary search of the under croft was prompted by a letter sent to Lord Monteagle, a Catholic sympathiser, warning him not to go the Lords on the 5th of November. The first search was inconclusive except for a suspicious amount of firewood. But after discovering that Thomas Percy owned the storeroom, who at this time was a well-known devout Catholic, a second search was conducted, resulting in the discovery of Guy Fawkes hiding amongst the barrels with fuses in his pockets. He was removed and tortured for the following days until he spilled the names of his fellow plotters. They were all either killed in skirmishes with the authorities or found guilty of high treason and hung, drawn and quartered.
Now after that extended telling of the Gunpowder plot, I have still not answered my initial musing around how our annual celebrations have come to be. Well, it began in January 1606 when parliament passed ‘An Act for a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God every Year on the Fifth Day of November’, making it mandatory for every church in England to hold a special service on 5th November to commemorate the victory of the Protestant state over Catholic conspiracy. Overt time
Guy Fawkes night has rightly lost its anti-Catholic sentiment and religious values. It has instead morphed into a public shaming of the since created bogey man, Guy Fawkes. Although by all accounts it was Robert Catesby that led the plot, Guy Fawkes is the figure who is villainised and burnt at the stake every year.
A tradition which has disappeared in recent years is the burning of “Guys” on the bonfire. Children carried straw effigies, called “Guys,” through the streets in the days leading up to the 5th November and asked passersby for “a penny for the guy,”. They would recite nursery rhymes, most famous of which is the one which began this article. This would be followed by the lighting of fireworks to represent the explosives which were never used by the plotters. The gunpowder plot is not only remembered by the people, but Parliament too, as before every State opening of Parliament there is an annual search of the basements to check for potential arsonists.
Over time celebrations have become more commercialised and sanitised with people more likely to attend paid-for fireworks displays rather than their own makeshift set up – the fire department can breathe a sigh of relief! s.
I hope you all had a wonderful bonfire night and if you missed out there’s always next year!! To round off this article I wanted to give a plug to my niche crossing of interests between history/politics and musical theatre. If you find yourself relating to that I would highly recommend listening to Treason: a new musical based on the gunpowder plot which is incredible.
