The Gunpowder Plot
By Callum MacGregor, Editor of The Bristorian
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him? Burn him!
The 5th of November, perhaps better known as Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, or traditionally Guy Fawkes Night. It’s the day where we all come together to burn effigies of the infamous traitor Guy Fawkes, roast some marshmallows, and muse over the delights of sparklers and fireworks.
So today, as we celebrate the 416th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot’s discovery, I think it’s worth asking what on earth we’re really commemorating.
The year was 1605 and England is Protestant, much to the disdain of its Catholic inhabitants. Still influential is the Papal Bull of 1570, Regnans in Excelsis, that called for England’s Catholics to renounce their allegiance to Elizabeth I ‘the pretended Queen of England’, inspiring countless plots to assassinate our Good Queen Bess.
Now, James I had taken the throne and still the problem remained – he’s a Protestant. So what choice was there other than to blow up the House of Lords?
Unfortunately for Fawkes and co, the conspiracy was revealed by a letter sent to Baron Monteagle warning of ‘a terrible blow this coming parliament’. The King therefore ordered Parliament to be searched on the night of the 4th.
So Fawkes, matches in hand, was caught with 36 barrels of gunpowder under the Houses of Parliament. Try getting out of that one…
Fawkes did indeed try for the sake of his collaborators, claiming he was ‘John Johnson’ and had acted alone – that was until he met the Stuart ‘torture rack’ and revealed the details of the plot. The twelve other conspirators were then arrested and put on trial.
At the trial little mercy was shown, as Attorney-General Sir Edward Coke charged that each of the condemned would be:
‘Drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground. He was to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both". His genitals would be cut off and burnt before his eyes, and his bowels and heart then removed. Then he would be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of his body displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air". Yikes.
Since God’s will had evidently saved the King’s life and exposed the Catholic traitors, James passed the Thanksgiving Act - which mandated that the whole country would give thanks for the failure of the plot and the divine favour of their king. So we’ve been burning bonfires ever since.
Happy Guy Fawkes Night, I suppose.
