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Gunpowder Plot

The Gunpowder Plot was a fanatical project on the part of a few Roman Catholics to destroy the King, Lords, and Commons on the meeting of Parliament on November the 5th, 1605. The disappointment of the Catholics on finding that the severe laws against them were not to be relaxed, led to a conspiracy on the part of a few gentlemen of that persuasion, of whom the chief was William Catesby, a person of dissolute habits.

It was arranged that, on the day of the meeting of Parliament, November 5, 1605, the House of Lords should be blown up by gunpowder, at the moment when the King, Lords, and Commons were assembled in it, thus destroying as they thought, all their chief enemies at one blow, and making way for a new government which should be more favorable to them.

Accordingly, thirty-four barrels of powder were deposited in the cellars beneath the House, and a person named Guy Fawkes was prepared to kindle it at the proper time. The plot was discovered, in consequence of the receipt of a letter by Lord Monteagle, warning him not to attend the meeting of Parliament. An investigation took place during the night between the 4th and 5th of November, when the gunpowder was discovered, and Fawkes taken into custody.

James I had succeeded Elizabeth in 1603, and his Government had exercised great severities against the Roman Catholics, not merely denying them religious toleration, but confiscating their property. A few ruined and exasperated men banded together to overthrow the Government. The originator of the plot was Robert Catesby, a man of fortune, which he had impaired by youthful extravagance, and who communicated his idea to Thomas Winter, who was horrified at first, but after a while began to approve and further it.

For this end he enlisted into the conspiracy Guy Fawkes, a soldier of fortune, of considerable military experience, and a most determined and fearless character. Catesby enlisted two others, by name Wright and Percy — the latter a relation of the Earl of Northumberland. They hired a house and garden contiguous to the Parliament House, and commenced their mine, a part working when the others slept, and the rubbish being buried during night.

One day the were alarmed by a noise after they had with much labor pierced the wall three yards thick. Fawkes learned that this noise proceeded from a cellar under the House of Lords, which would soon be vacant. He hired it, and barrels of gunpowder were placed in it, and stones and billets of wood placed over them, for the double purpose of concealment and to act as destructive missiles when the gunpowder was fired.

In the interval, a brother of Wright and a brother of Winter had been added to the conspirators, so they were now seven, But they wanted money; and to supply it, two others were induced to enter this fanatical copartnery, and these were Sir Everard Digby of Gatehurst, in Buckinghamshire, a young gentleman of large estates; and Francis Tresham, a follower of Essex, like Catesby and Percy, but, unlike them, a selfish unenthusiastic man.

The plan was finally arranged for the re-assembling of Parliament, which was to take place on the 5th of November. Guy Fawkes was to fire the mine (if the gunpowder in the cellar may be so called), and then flee to Flanders by a ship provided with Tresham's money, and waiting ready on the Thames.

All the Roman Catholic Peers and others whom it was expedient to preserve were to be prevented from going to the Parliament House, by some pretended message or other, on the morning of that day. After all was ready, Lord Mounteagle was at supper at his country-house at Hoxton, where he very seldom was. As he sat, a page handed him a letter received from a stranger, advising him “to devise some excuse to shift off your attendance at this Parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time.” That this letter was written by or for Tresham, who was the Lord Mounteagle's brother-in-law, there can be little doubt. That he desired to save him was certainly one reason for writing it; that he desired to save the conspirators, or at least to allow them to escape, is very probable; and that they might have escaped, but for the fanatical hopes of Catesby, is all but certain.

It is also probable that Lord Mounteagle had been fully informed of the whole matter by Tresham, and that the supper in the country and the letter were mere devices to conceal Tresham's treachery. When the letter was formally communicated to the King, he at once declared its meaning, and the most simple way of accounting for his divination is to suppose that, like Lord Mounteagle, he had been told beforehand.

On the very evening of the 4th, the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Mounteagle visited the Parliament House, and entering the cellar in a casual way, told Guy Fawkes, whom they found there, and who passed as Percy's servant, that his master had laid in a plenty of fuel. Only fanaticism gone the length of fatuity could have made him persevere after this. But he did, though escape was still possible; and on the morning of the 5th, a little after midnight, he was arrested coming out of the cellar, dressed as for a journey. Three matches were found on him, a dark-lantern burning in a corner within, and a hogshead and thirty-six barrels of gunpowder.

Fawkes was examined and tortured. He confessed his own guilt, but would not discover his associates. However, he and the chief of them were either killed on being captured, or died on the scaffold; except Tresham, who at first walked about openly, but at last was apprehended, and died of a natural disease in the Tower. The rest of the conspirators fled to the country, where most of them were cut to pieces in endeavoring to defend themselves.

Notwithstanding the atrocious character of this plot, the king could never be induced to take advantage of it, as most of his subjects desired, for the purpose of increasing the persecution of the Catholic party. He probably feared that new severities might only give rise to other attempts against his life.

The memory of this plot, invested by much fiction, has survived in England; and it was not more diabolical than hopeless and mad. It was in itself mysterious, and for purposes of state policy and Protestant zeal a further mystery was thrown over it. No name in English history had been more detested than that of Guy Fawkes.

The date November 5th is still celebrated with the burning of Guy Fawkes' effigy, with the figure called "The end of the year." This name is due to a popular confounding of this observance with an ancient custom, now extinct, of burning or burying an effigy of the old year on New Year's eve. Guy Fawkes' day is an anniversary, on November 5, of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in England, 1605.

It is peculiarly an English observance. In memory of the providential deliverance of the king and Parliament "Te Deums" were sung in the churches, and the anniversary became a red-letter day in English annals. It was and is still observed in a peculiar manner. During the day straw-stuffed effigies of Guy Fawkes are carried by boys and men about the streets on chairs or trestles supported by two poles, like a sedan-chair. Some of these effigies are life-size, and are gotten up in tawdry finery, with a mask or "false-face" topped by three-cornered cocked hat.

So, about the time the American boys are dancing round the Election-night bonfire, English boys are burning the guy. In fact, the two observances are really one and the same thing. From the earliest colonial times in New England, the custom having been brought over by the first settlers, the 5th of November was celebrated by burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes and by letting off fireworks, or by carrying about the village street at night a pair of hideous "pumpkin faces" with candle-ends inside. These were supposed to represent the Pope and the devil, and they were burned together in a fire on the common.

Gradually, however, the significance of the day faded from sight. At the present time, though the memory of the Gunpowder Plot and of the "pumpkin faces" has long disappeared, the boys in some of the New England towns annually build fires on the night of the 5th of November, though they cannot tell why they do so, any more than they can tell why tops, marbles, and kites are "in" or "out" of season.

Until recently, the day has been a uniquely British affair celebrated with fireworks, bonfires, toffee apples, and the somewhat spooky refrain: “Remember, remember!The fifth of November, The Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot!”

But over the past several years Fawkes has made a global comeback. His spirit lives on thanks in large part to the 1980 graphic novel and 2006 movie “V for Vendetta.” The Fawkes mask worn by the protagonist of the film has become a global symbol of rebellion, and has perhaps been most successfully co-opted by Anonymous, a shadowy hacker collective. The mask has been used in protests around the world against alleged abuse of power. The dramatic, opera-like mask was popularized in the Hollywood film V for Vendetta and has black eyebrows, a Van Dyke style beard, rosy cheeks and a smile.