Today, England celebrates November 5 as “Guy Fawkes Day” in commemoration of the botched attack on the English Parliament by a group of anti-government conspirators who hoped to blow up the Parliament building in the infamous "Gunpowder Plot." Ironically, Fawkes was not one of the original conspirators and actually was a late addition to the group.
Born a Protestant in 1570, Fawkes enlisted in the Spanish army in the Netherlands around 1593, shortly after converting to Catholicism. Co-conspirators Robert Catesby, Thomas Winter, Thomas Percy and John Wright enlisted Fawkes as a ringer, reasoning that his military skills — he had participated in the 1595 capture of Calais, France — and his anonymity as a foreign soldier made him an ideal candidate to help execute their plan.
Fawkes'
henchmen were zealous Catholics who believed that by beheading the government,
they might usher in a new era of Catholicism in Protestant England. Led by
Catesby, they hatched a plan to explode gunpowder under Parliament during a
state opening, when King James I, his queen, and other family members and
government leaders were inside. The plot was set for Nov. 5, 1605, and in the
preceding days, the conspirators rented a cellar underneath the building, where
Fawkes stashed at least 20 barrels of gunpowder.
Things didn't
go according to plan. The plotters sought wider support, and, as the story
goes, one of the individuals to whom they reached out alerted his
brother-in-law, a lord, not to attend Parliament on Nov. 5. The building was
searched, and Fawkes was apprehended along with his stockpile of gunpowder.
Tortured on the rack, he revealed the names of his co-conspirators. Some of
them were killed while resisting arrest; others, including Fawkes, pled not
guilty and went to trial, where they were convicted of high treason. In
January, 1606, the remaining conspirators were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Parliament immediately established Nov. 5 as a day of celebration.
[January 31,
1606]
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