Guy Fawkes and the Conspiracy of the Gunpowder Plot
“Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November. The
Gunpowder
Treason, andPlot
. I know of know reason why theGunpowder
Treason should ever be forgot.” On November the 5th, 1604, thirteen menplot
ted together to blow up the Palace of Westminster in London on the day when the most powerful men in England were set to meet at Parliament. The authorities learned about the plan through an anonymous letter, and the terrorists were stopped just in time. The first man they encountered at the scene wasGuy
Fawkes
, who had been guarding barrels ofgunpowder
in the basement below the palace. If you’re an American, you probably know about GuyFawkes
from the movie V for Vendetta, and you most likely associate him with anarchy. This association has been pushed even more in recent years with the use of GuyFawkes
masks by the Anonymous organization. If you’re from the UK, you already know about GuyFawkes
Night, which is celebrated every November 5th with a bonfire and fireworks. Nearlyeveryone has heard of the famous
Gunpowder
Plot
, but few people know the details about Guy Fawke’s life, or the motivations behind why he and his friends wanted to blow up Parliament in the first place. Even though this is a biography of his life, GuyFawkes
is a very small part in this larger story. In order to fully understand the motivations behind theGunpowder
Plot
, we first need to explain the conflicts between English Catholics and Protestants at that time. So, What’s Up With TheCatholics? For a large part of human history, the most
powerful religion in the world was the Roman Catholic Church. If a country was Catholic, its citizens looked
up to the reigning Pope as their religious leader, and in the minds of some, this authority
was more important than their loyalty to their actual King of Queen because whoever has access
to God has access to your mortal soul. In a lot of ways, the Protestant Reformation
was a way to remove all of the power being held by the Popes and
Bishops. It was sort of like cutting out the middleman
for the average person’s access to God. Because, you see, Catholics are taught that
if you want your sins to be forgiven, you have to tell a priest every bad thing you
have ever done in confession. A priest is sworn to secrecy, kind of like
a therapist. But even so, everyone had the knowledge that
these men held all of the deepest darkest secrets of their congregation. Confession wasn’t just encouraged. It’s mandatory. And even the
smallest sin left unsaid could
mean you’re going to Hell. On top of that, Catholic mass was said in
Latin, so everyone needed to study the language. For the uneducated peasants, they needed to
rely on a translation from their priest. Basically, the religion is set up in such
a way where priests and the Pope were given a huge amount of power over their congregation. In 1558, Elizabeth declared that there should
be a “settlement”, which declared that all English citizens must convert to
Protestantism. Bishops that were formerly apart of the Catholic
Church must renounce their loyalty to the Pope, if they wanted to live. It was now mandatory for every English person
to go to Protestant church services every Sunday, and they were taking attendance. If anyone missed one too many services, they
were fined, or sent to jail. After hearing this, Pope Pius V excommunicated
Elizabeth from the Catholic Church. In 1570, he commanded a papal bull that encouraged
all Catholics to depose
her- Basically, do not be loyal to their Queen. He called her "Elizabeth, the pretended Queen
of England, and the servant of crime". You can probably see why this was problematic. Catholics were now seen as enemy agents. People in the lower classes were quick to
convert to Protestantism. They could not afford to pay the hefty fines,
and many of the illiterate peasants couldn’t speak or read Latin, anyway. So it was an easy choice to make, and a symbol
that they were loyal to their
Queen. But for the educated people of the upper class,
this was not such an easy conversion. For one thing, this was taking away the freedom
to choose their religion, and there were plenty of people who still truly believe that the
Catholic Church was the one true church. These people were called “recusants”,
which comes from the Latin word recusare, which means “to refuse”. For these people who broke the law and continued
to practice their Catholic faith, they believed they were
fighting for their immortal souls. Since so much of the religion relies on a
priest to say mass and give confession, recusant Catholics began to hide priests in their home. This was completely illegal, and harboring
a priest was punishable by death. If it was known at a family was Catholic,
the royal guard would show up unannounced at all times of the day and night to ransack
their homes, looking for hidden priests. Upper-class Catholic families who refused
to attend Protestant mass continued to
pay expensive fines, to the point where they were
losing all of their family inheritance. Many English Catholics were forced to move
to Flanders, which was a safe zone. After Elizabeth I’s death, the Scottish
King James VI took over the throne, and became King James I of England. Catholic citizens had no idea how his reign
would be any different than Elizabeth’s and they waited to see what would happen next. The Life of Guy
Fawkes
There is not very much known about GuyFawkes
’ childhood,either, except that he was born in 1570 in York, England to Edward and Edith
Fawkes
. His family had been Protestant, and his father even worked for The Church of England. They were law-abiding Protestants who went to church every Sunday. His mother came from along line of Catholics, but she chose to give up her faith in favor of conforming. Guy Fawke’s father died when he was 8 years old, and his mother was a widow for years before she decided to marry a Catholic man. They began practicing thefaith in secret,
and they baptized Guy and his siblings in a secret ceremony in the St. Michael le Belfrey
church. He attended St. Peter’s School in York,
which had a lot of recusant Catholic teachers and students. He was able to attend mass in the homes of
people who were hiding priests. As an adult, he chose to continue practicing
that Catholic faith, and he became passionate about trying to help protect it. At some point, Guy
Fawkes
is said to have gotten married and had a son. There arerecords from 1590 that a man named
Guy
Fawkes
married a woman named Maria Pulleyn, and a birth certificate of their son, ThomasFawkes
. When he was 21 years old, he would have been old enough to take out his inheritance. That same year, there are documents of a lease of a 3-and-a-half-acre piece of land and home signed by GuyFawkes
, including a stamp with the image of a falcon, which was on his family crest. He once had a very normal life. He entered the service of Anthony Brown, 1st Viscountof Montagu as a footman. At that time, working in the service of a
Lord was considered to be a very respectable job among the lower class, especially compared
to being a farmer. But for whatever reason, Brown did not like
Guy
Fawkes
, so he fired him. Back then, your reputation was everything, and it must have been difficult for him to get another job without a good letter of recommendation. He managed to work for Brown’s grandson after Anthony Brown’s death. From the records, it would seemthat he struggled
to maintain steady employment. So at 21 years old, he left England and move
to Flanders. He fought together with the Spanish army,
to do his part in the Eighty Year War. At that time, Spain was considered to be the
protectors of the Catholic faith, and during the war, they were fending off Dutch Protestantism
in the Netherlands. While fighting with the Spanish, he decided
to go by the name “Guido”. He was described by one of his compatriots
to be "of excellent good
natural parts, very resolute and universally learned", and was
"sought by all the most distinguished in the Archduke's camp for nobility and virtue". People say that he was very tall and muscular. He had reddish-brown hair and beard, and was
basically described as being the perfect soldier. Despite having these descriptions, No one
knows what Guy
Fawkes
truly looks like, because there was never a portrait painted of his likeness. We only have the caricatures that depicted himafter his death, and these were mostly drawn in such a way that made him look like
a villain. In most images, he has black hair and a beard
with an upturned mustache. The
Gunpowder
Plot
After King James I came into power, Catholics waited with bated breath to see what would happen next. A recusant Catholic man named Thomas Percy was a cousin of Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland. Even though he was not a Lord himself, Percy was able to take it upon himself to request an audience withthe King. He asked for mercy on behalf of the English
Catholics. Wanting to gain popularity with his new English
subjects, James was vague, and made sure not to make any promises. It was still very early in his reign, and
he was not sure yet what he should do about the tensions between Protestants and Catholics. He essentially told Percy not to worry, because
he personally had no ill will towards Catholics. Percy believed that King James was going to
offer some kind of relief, and that he might
be getting ready to repeal Queen Elizabeth
I’s laws. Percy was very happy about this, and returned
to tell his friends and family that they no longer had to worry about being persecuted
for their faith any longer. Some even hoped that maybe James would convert
to Catholicism, and the entire country would revert back to practicing the one true church. For about a year, English Catholics were able
to live a normal life. James temporarily stopped collecting fees
that recusant Catholics were
required to pay for skipping Protestant service. He also did not push for his guard to search
Catholic homes for harboring priests. However, the laws made by Elizabeth I were
still in place. He had not repealed them, because he was waiting
to see what the reaction would be from his Protestant Parliament. In the summer of 1604, the members of Parliament
finally noticed that Catholics were not being persecuted anymore, and they began to push
King James to come down hard on them. The way they felt
about Catholics was very
similar to Communists in the Cold War. Many of them believed that if they were not
stamped out, they would cause an uprising. So, James brought back the same laws the Elizabeth
I had put in place. Suddenly, Catholic homes were being searched
once again, and they were being treated like criminals. The Catholic people in England had lived so
long being oppressed, but the thing that triggered their anger was the sense of false hope. They felt betrayed by King James, and it
was
enough to make some want to kill him. Even though Guy
Fawkes
is the one who is most remembered for theGunpowder
Plot
, the ring leader was actually a man named Robert Catesby. He began making plans in 1603, and first recruited a man named Thomas Winter. Catesby and Winter rode to Spain, because they had associates who were Catholic. Spain was also designated as the protectors of the Catholic faith. Since Catholics in England were being persecuted once again, they begged for help from theSpanish to stop King James from killing their
people. However, the Spanish were not interested in
getting involved. Catesby and Winter returned to England, and
decided if they were going to find anyone to help them, it would have to be at home. They found John Wright, and Thomas Percy. Winter had gone to school with Guy
Fawkes
, and he seemed like the perfect candidate to help them with theplot
. After all,Fawkes
had plenty of experience fighting in Spain, and he knew a lot aboutgunpowder
. Hewas smart, and knew how to stay cool under
pressure. In May of 1604, the five men were spotted
together at London’s Duck and Drake Inn. They whispered about their
plot
, and swore an oath of loyalty and secrecy. The group was biding their time, trying to figure out the finer details of the plan as time went on. Thomas Percy had the resources to purchased a property in London that was very close to The Palace of Westminster. GuyFawkes
began to live with him, posing as a footman named “JohnJohnson”. This way, they would never seem out of the
ordinary to anyone who witnessed them around town. At that time, it was not uncommon for men
to buy
gunpowder
, especially if they planned to sail overseas. They needed the powder to use their guns and cannons to defend themselves from pirates. The only trouble was buying small quantities over a long period of time, as not to raise suspicions. GuyFawkes
would use his connections to slowly gather a cache ofgunpowder
barrels that wereleftover from ships entering the harbor, and
bringing them back to Thomas Percy. At the time, the Palace of Westminster had
a collection of smaller buildings. Lords and other members of the upper class
would come and go from those buildings on a regular basis without being stopped by security. The rules were very relaxed, and it was actually
easy for Thomas Percy to rent a storage space in the basement below the Palace, claiming
that it was for his cousin, The Earl of Northumberland, to store
his firewood for winter. The day of Parliament kept getting delayed,
and the group of conspirators grew from 5 to 13 men. Unfortuantely for them, though, the extended
time combined with the greater number of people who were being told about the
plot
meant that it was far more likely that the secret was going to get out. A Catholic man named Lord Monteagle was preparing to be present at Parliament. A masked man handed a letter to one of Monteagle servants, and it was presented to him immediately.It said; “My lord, out of the love I bear
to some of your friends, I have a care of your preservation, therefore I would advise
you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this
parliament . . . for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive
a terrible blow.” Even though it was late at night, Lord Monteagle
quickly told his servants to ready the horses, so that he could deliver the letter to Robert
Cecil, the Spy Master and
Secretary of State to King James. Historians have debated over the theories
of who actually wrote that anonymous letter. It could have been one of the 13 conspirators. It may have even been Lord Monteagle himself,
writing a fake letter after hearing letters through the Catholic recusant grapevine. He was awarded 500 pounds per year for his
loyalty to the crown. Back then, that was a small fortune. Even more historian believe it was Robert
Cecil. He was the spy master, after all, and some
believe
that he knew about the
Gunpowder
Plot
for a long time, and orchestrated the entire scene to make himself seem like the hero. On the 4th of November, there was an extensive search of the Palace of Westminster. At first, they did not find anything that concerned them, and they were beginning to believe that the letter was a hoax. But later that day, it was brought to the royal guard’s attention that there were cellars underneath the palace that had not been searched yet. A royal official namedSir Thomas Knyvett
was told that one of them was being used for storing firewood, so he lead a group of royal
guards to search the area. When they arrived, they found Guy
Fawkes
guarding the firewood. Instead of wearing the clothes of a watchman,Fawkes
was dressed in his riding boots, spurs, hat, and cloak, as if he was getting ready to jump on a horse at any moment. They moved the wood piles aside to reveal 36 barrels ofgunpowder
. The royal guards searched him and found a box of long matches.Fawkes
was immediately arrested. On November the 6th, King James wanted to meet GuyFawkes
face-to-face. He interviewed him, asking if he had any regret. He genuinely wanted to know how anyone could be so ruthless to be willing to kill so many people- even the young children who would have been present at Parliament.Fawkes
said that his only regret was that the plan failed. Fawks still called himself “John Johnson”, and he refused to give up the names of his co-conspirators. King Jamesordered that
Fawkes
be tortured and interrogated. He was suspended by manacles, and then put on the rack so that his arms and legs were stretched and popped out of their sockets. He eventually caved and gave his confession. In the before-and-after of his signature, we can see that he could hardly write his own name, after enduring so much pain. While GuyFawkes
was being tortured, the rest of the conspirators were on the run. Robert Catesby began to announce to the villages that King James wasdead, and he called for Catholics to rise up to reclaim their rightful
place in the kingdom. They rode from town to town, but instead of
the huge army he expected, there were only about 40 men who decided to follow him. Ironically, Catesby and his men accidently
blew themselves up with their own
gunpowder
they had brought with them. Without GuyFawkes
there to help them with his expertise, they thought that in order to dry out the damp, they should sprinkle theirgunpowder
in front of an openfireplace. It exploded, of course, and one of the men
had gone blind. The rest were now burned and injured. One of the men asked Robert Catesby what they
were going to do next. He replied, “We mean here to die.” On November the 8th, the sheriff of Warwickshire
showed up with a small army of 200 men. There was a shootout between the two groups. The weakened Catholic men did their best to
go out fighting, but it was clear that the king’s guard would overpowered them. Robert Catesby was shot,
but crawled to the
nearby chapel. He was later found on the floor of the church,
hugging a statue of the Virgin Mary. The men who were left alive were taken prisoner,
and sentenced to hang in the gallows along with Guy
Fawkes
. Death and Legacy On the 31st of January, 1606, GuyFawkes
and his fellow conspirators were found guilty of treason, and their punishment would have been to “hanged, drawn, and quartered”. This meant that a man was dragged through the streets before he was hanged in thegallows. But just before he was about to choke to death,
they would let him go. As he gasped for breath, they would dig a
knife into his stomach, and pull out his entrails. Then, they chopped off his arms and legs while
he was still alive. Then, the four quarters of their body were
taken to the four corners of England. As Guy
Fawkes
stood in front of the crowd, King James declared that these Catholic traitors were trying to blow up the entire island of England. This would have been physicallyimpossible,
of course, but it was enough to make people extremely angry. They were screaming and booing, calling him
a traitor. Before they could torture him again, Guy
Fawkes
jumped, breaking his own neck. Even though he was no alive to feel the pain, they still went through with cutting his body apart into pieces. TheGunpowder
Plot
had very nearly succeeded. And if it were not for the anonymous letter, GuyFawkes
may have actually succeeded at lighting the fuse. If the barrels ofgunpowder
had exploded,
it would have been powerful enough to bring down the palace, and nearby buildings. It would have killed the King and the princes,
as well as some of the most powerful noblemen in the country. This would have left the throne to James’
daughter, Princess Elizabeth. They had hoped that since she was so young,
she would be easy to manipulate as a sort of puppet. Many believe that Robert Catesby would have
eventually gotten more Catholics to follow him, and this would have erupted
into an English
civil war. After this incident, Parliament passed the
Thanksgiving Act of 1606, which was a law that English citizens must pray and give thanks
to God that the terrorists did not kill the King. That day became known as “Guy
Fawkes
Night”, or “Bonfire Night”, and it is celebrated every year on November the 5th. People usually celebrate by building a large bonfire and burning a life-sized dummy of GuyFawkes
. There is also a fireworks show, to symbolize the explosions thatnever happened. Since then, everyone has always remembered
the Fifth of November.