Guy Fawkes Day

November 5,
1605

King James learns of gunpowder plot

Early in the morning, King James I of England learns that a plot to
explode the Parliament building has been foiled, hours before he was
scheduled to sit with the rest of the British government in a general
parliamentary session.

At about midnight on the night of November
4-5, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, found Guy Fawkes
lurking in a cellar under the Parliament building and ordered the
premises searched. Some 20 barrels of gunpowder were found, and Fawkes
was taken into custody. During a torture session on the rack, Fawkes
revealed that he was a participant in an English Catholic conspiracy to
annihilate England’s Protestant government and replace it with Catholic
leadership.

What became known as the Gunpowder Plot was organized
by Robert Catesby, an English Catholic whose father had been persecuted
by Queen Elizabeth I for refusing to conform to the Church of England.
Guy Fawkes had converted to Catholicism, and his religious zeal led him
to fight in the Spanish army in the Netherlands. Catesby and the
handful of other plotters rented a cellar that extended under
Parliament, and Fawkes planted the gunpowder there, hiding the barrels
under coal and wood.

As the November 5 meeting of Parliament
approached, Catesby enlisted more English Catholics into the
conspiracy, and one of these, Francis Tresham, warned his Catholic
brother-in-law Lord Monteagle not to attend Parliament that day.
Monteagle alerted the government, and hours before the attack was to
have taken place Fawkes and the explosives were found. By torturing
Fawkes, King James’ government learned of the identities of his
co-conspirators. During the next few weeks, English authorities killed
or captured all the plotters and put the survivors on trial, along with
a few innocent English Catholics.

Guy Fawkes himself was
sentenced, along with the other surviving chief conspirators, to be
hanged, drawn, and quartered in London. Moments before the start of his
gruesome execution, on January 31, 1606, he jumped from a ladder while
climbing to the hanging platform, breaking his neck and dying instantly.

In
1606, Parliament established November 5 as a day of public
thanksgiving. Today, Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated across Great Britain
every year on November 5 in remembrance of the Gunpowder Plot. As dusk
falls, villagers and city dwellers across Britain light bonfires, set
off fireworks, and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes, celebrating his failure
to blow Parliament and James I to kingdom come.

History Channel

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