*Ø* Blogmanac November 5, 1605 | Gunpowder, treason and plot
Britain's Burning Man
Please to remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We know no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
A stick and a stake, for King George’s sake,
A stick and a stump, for Guy Fawkes’s rump!
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
Traditional English rhyme on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605
1605 The Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes (“the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions”) and collaborators attempted to blow up the English Houses of Parliament.
“During the period from 1563, successive legislation, starting with the (second) Act of Supremacy, required an oath from all subjects that the monarch was Supreme Governor of the Church and any refusal was punishable by death. Catholics continued their religion in secret and the great houses were equipped with secret rooms where Mass would still be celebrated by priests smuggled in from the Continent and using false names. This had been tolerated in the early part of Elizabeth's reign. But it was not to last.” Source
Yorkshire-born Guy Fawkes (April 13, 1570 - January 31, 1606), was one of a number of Catholics who plotted to blow up England’s parliament, along with King James I. By upbringing a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism and in 1593, had served as a mercenary in Spain’s army in the Netherlands. He was at the capture of Calais in 1595, where, apparently, he distinguished himself greatly. He was perhaps selected for his skill in siege-craft when the plot was hatched to tunnel under Parliament. Probably he was suited to the conspiracy, too, because, as a Yorkshireman and having been abroad for some time, he was unknown in London.
The Gunpowder Plot was concocted in May of 1604 with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Robert Wintour. Working for more than a year, in March 1605 the conspirators rented a vault under the House of Lords, which they filled with 36 barrels of gunpowder which they hid under some firewood, and then waited. Fawkes was to have lit the fuse to the barrels of gunpowder (he declared he would have fired the powder when Knyvett discovered it, had he been present; in fact, he was outside the house at the time), but one of the conspirators, Tresham, warned his Catholic relative, Lord Monteagle, of the plot (in order to save Catholic lives) and the Catholic uprising that was to have ensued.
Fawkes was interrogated under torture. However, torture was forbidden except by the express instruction of the monarch or the Privy Council, so King James stated in a letter of the day after the incident: ‘The gentler tortours are to be first used unto him, et sic per gradus ad mia tenditur [and thus by increase to the worst], and so God speed your goode worke’. On November 7, Fawkes confessed all and revealed the names of his co-conspirators. His signature is noticeably shaky, indicating the pains of torture he endured.
A trial in name only followed, but the sentences had already been predetermined. On January 31, 1606, Fawkes, Wintour, and a number of others implicated in the conspiracy were taken to Old Palace Yard in Westminster, where they were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Wikipedia recounts: “According to historian Antonia Fraser, the gunpowder was taken to the Tower of London and would have been reissued if in good condition, or otherwise sold for recycling. However a sample of the gunpowder may have survived – in March 2002 workers at the British Library, investigating archives of John Evelyn, found a box containing various samples of gunpowder and several notes: ‘Gunpowder 1605 in a paper inscribed by John Evelyn. Powder with which that villain Faux would have blown up the parliament.’ and ‘Gunpowder. Large package is supposed to be Guy Fawkes' gunpowder.’ and ‘But there was none left! WEH 1952.’
Guy Fawkes appears in the 2002 List of "100 Great Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public), alongside such luminaries as David Beckham, Aleister Crowley, Winston Churchill and Johnny Rotten.
It is an annual ceremony for Yeomen of the Guard to search the cellars prior to the opening of Britain’s Parliament, as it is for English people to burn bonfires upon which are placed effigies of Fawkes, called ‘guys’. Because these fantastically dressed effigies have long been called ‘guys’, the word came to mean any strange-looking person (hence WS Gilbert in the Mikado has a “little list” for possible extermination “The woman who … dresses like a guy”) and later came to be applied in a derogatory sense to any man. However, some American lexicographers derive ‘guy’ from a Spanish word.
Was Guy framed?
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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Guy Fawkes Night, Britain
Guy Fawkes Night (often referred to as bonfire night) is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks on November 5th, or the closest Friday or Saturday night. Until the nineteenth century there was a special Church of England service for this commemoration in the Book of Common Prayer. Guy Fawkes Day became a public holiday in 1606 when it was proclaimed by an Act of Parliament.
In commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot on this day in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his comrades tried to blow up James I and the whole English Parliament, English people still burn a guy in effigy. Traditionally the guy’s cap was made of paper and knotted with ribbon-like paper strips. The dummy carried matches in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. Children would go around the streets asking for money, saying “Please to remember the guy!”
In 1850 in Britain there was a strong wave of anti-Catholic sentiment, and the guy was often in the likeness of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. In 1857 the popular guy was Nana Sahib who had brought military injuries to the British in the East.
At Lincoln’s Field, England, the huge Guy Fawkes Night bonfire used to be made of 200 cartloads of fuel and was topped by 30 guys, or effigies of Guy Fawkes.
The bone-fire
Guy Fawkes Night in Britain has for centuries been a bonfire night. Anciently, a bonfire was actually a bone-fire, burning animal bones amongst the wood. Before that, in pagan ceremonies human beings were burned in sacrifice.
One old name for Guy Fawkes Night was Gunpowder Treason. In London on Gunpowder Treason, butchers used to thrash each other with sinews from slaughtered bulls.
A Halloween/Samhain custom
Guy Fawkes Night, coming as it does nearly on the ancient pagan cross-quarter day of Samhain (half way between the northern Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice), otherwise known as Halloween, continues the old custom of burning in effigy the evil spirits of the old year.
At Lewes, Sussex, the British tradition of Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated with greater enthusiasm than practically anywhere else. This is because long ago Bloody Mary, the Catholic monarch, executed seventeen citizens of that town. Guy Fawkes Night is, unfortunately, a hangover from the days of intense hatred between Catholics and Protestants. At Lewes, mock Catholic clergy enact mock death sentences.
Bonfire Society Webring
Guy Fawkes Carnival, Bridgewater, Somerset, UK
Lewes Bonfire Night, Lewes, Sussex, UK
Turning the Devil's Stone, Shebbear, near Holsworthy, Devon, UK
Burning barrels, Ottery St Mary, UK
More on the burning barrels of Ottery
This article is new at this page at the Scriptorium
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
Britain's Burning Man
Please to remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We know no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
A stick and a stake, for King George’s sake,
A stick and a stump, for Guy Fawkes’s rump!
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
Traditional English rhyme on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605
1605 The Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes (“the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions”) and collaborators attempted to blow up the English Houses of Parliament.
“During the period from 1563, successive legislation, starting with the (second) Act of Supremacy, required an oath from all subjects that the monarch was Supreme Governor of the Church and any refusal was punishable by death. Catholics continued their religion in secret and the great houses were equipped with secret rooms where Mass would still be celebrated by priests smuggled in from the Continent and using false names. This had been tolerated in the early part of Elizabeth's reign. But it was not to last.” Source
Yorkshire-born Guy Fawkes (April 13, 1570 - January 31, 1606), was one of a number of Catholics who plotted to blow up England’s parliament, along with King James I. By upbringing a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism and in 1593, had served as a mercenary in Spain’s army in the Netherlands. He was at the capture of Calais in 1595, where, apparently, he distinguished himself greatly. He was perhaps selected for his skill in siege-craft when the plot was hatched to tunnel under Parliament. Probably he was suited to the conspiracy, too, because, as a Yorkshireman and having been abroad for some time, he was unknown in London.
The Gunpowder Plot was concocted in May of 1604 with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Robert Wintour. Working for more than a year, in March 1605 the conspirators rented a vault under the House of Lords, which they filled with 36 barrels of gunpowder which they hid under some firewood, and then waited. Fawkes was to have lit the fuse to the barrels of gunpowder (he declared he would have fired the powder when Knyvett discovered it, had he been present; in fact, he was outside the house at the time), but one of the conspirators, Tresham, warned his Catholic relative, Lord Monteagle, of the plot (in order to save Catholic lives) and the Catholic uprising that was to have ensued.
Fawkes was interrogated under torture. However, torture was forbidden except by the express instruction of the monarch or the Privy Council, so King James stated in a letter of the day after the incident: ‘The gentler tortours are to be first used unto him, et sic per gradus ad mia tenditur [and thus by increase to the worst], and so God speed your goode worke’. On November 7, Fawkes confessed all and revealed the names of his co-conspirators. His signature is noticeably shaky, indicating the pains of torture he endured.
A trial in name only followed, but the sentences had already been predetermined. On January 31, 1606, Fawkes, Wintour, and a number of others implicated in the conspiracy were taken to Old Palace Yard in Westminster, where they were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Wikipedia recounts: “According to historian Antonia Fraser, the gunpowder was taken to the Tower of London and would have been reissued if in good condition, or otherwise sold for recycling. However a sample of the gunpowder may have survived – in March 2002 workers at the British Library, investigating archives of John Evelyn, found a box containing various samples of gunpowder and several notes: ‘Gunpowder 1605 in a paper inscribed by John Evelyn. Powder with which that villain Faux would have blown up the parliament.’ and ‘Gunpowder. Large package is supposed to be Guy Fawkes' gunpowder.’ and ‘But there was none left! WEH 1952.’
Guy Fawkes appears in the 2002 List of "100 Great Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public), alongside such luminaries as David Beckham, Aleister Crowley, Winston Churchill and Johnny Rotten.
It is an annual ceremony for Yeomen of the Guard to search the cellars prior to the opening of Britain’s Parliament, as it is for English people to burn bonfires upon which are placed effigies of Fawkes, called ‘guys’. Because these fantastically dressed effigies have long been called ‘guys’, the word came to mean any strange-looking person (hence WS Gilbert in the Mikado has a “little list” for possible extermination “The woman who … dresses like a guy”) and later came to be applied in a derogatory sense to any man. However, some American lexicographers derive ‘guy’ from a Spanish word.
Was Guy framed?
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
Guy Fawkes Night, Britain
Guy Fawkes Night (often referred to as bonfire night) is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks on November 5th, or the closest Friday or Saturday night. Until the nineteenth century there was a special Church of England service for this commemoration in the Book of Common Prayer. Guy Fawkes Day became a public holiday in 1606 when it was proclaimed by an Act of Parliament.
In commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot on this day in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his comrades tried to blow up James I and the whole English Parliament, English people still burn a guy in effigy. Traditionally the guy’s cap was made of paper and knotted with ribbon-like paper strips. The dummy carried matches in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. Children would go around the streets asking for money, saying “Please to remember the guy!”
In 1850 in Britain there was a strong wave of anti-Catholic sentiment, and the guy was often in the likeness of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. In 1857 the popular guy was Nana Sahib who had brought military injuries to the British in the East.
At Lincoln’s Field, England, the huge Guy Fawkes Night bonfire used to be made of 200 cartloads of fuel and was topped by 30 guys, or effigies of Guy Fawkes.
The bone-fire
Guy Fawkes Night in Britain has for centuries been a bonfire night. Anciently, a bonfire was actually a bone-fire, burning animal bones amongst the wood. Before that, in pagan ceremonies human beings were burned in sacrifice.
One old name for Guy Fawkes Night was Gunpowder Treason. In London on Gunpowder Treason, butchers used to thrash each other with sinews from slaughtered bulls.
A Halloween/Samhain custom
Guy Fawkes Night, coming as it does nearly on the ancient pagan cross-quarter day of Samhain (half way between the northern Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice), otherwise known as Halloween, continues the old custom of burning in effigy the evil spirits of the old year.
At Lewes, Sussex, the British tradition of Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated with greater enthusiasm than practically anywhere else. This is because long ago Bloody Mary, the Catholic monarch, executed seventeen citizens of that town. Guy Fawkes Night is, unfortunately, a hangover from the days of intense hatred between Catholics and Protestants. At Lewes, mock Catholic clergy enact mock death sentences.
Bonfire Society Webring
Guy Fawkes Carnival, Bridgewater, Somerset, UK
Lewes Bonfire Night, Lewes, Sussex, UK
Turning the Devil's Stone, Shebbear, near Holsworthy, Devon, UK
Burning barrels, Ottery St Mary, UK
More on the burning barrels of Ottery
This article is new at this page at the Scriptorium
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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