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Faith and Treason: The Gunpowder Plot

Guy Fawkes

The Desperate Remedy: Henry Gresham and the Gunpowder Plot

A Fifth of November

Gunpowder Plot Terror and Faith In 1605

The Gunpowder Plot

What They Don't Tell You About the Gunpowder Plot

5 November 1605

Bonfire Night

Streets of Fire

Don't Forget

Bonfire Prayers Customs Recipes Songs and Chants for Guy Fawkes Day

Bonfire Poems

Celebrate with Bonfires

Eight Sabbats for Witches

Witch Hunts in Europe and America

The Da Vinci Code

The Rule of Four

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia

Myths and Legends of the British Isles

The Survival of the Pagan Gods

Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards & Pyrotechnics

Britain's Burning Man  

November 5, 1605 The Gunpowder Plot

On this day, 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 (1570 - 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, 1604, with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Robert Wintour. John Grant, Ambrose Rokewood, Robert Keyes, Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham and Catesby's servant, Thomas Bates, all joined in the hazardous plot. The conspirators originally rented a house near Parliament and started to dig a tunnel under the Houses of Parliament, working for more than a year. However, digging was slow and, in March, 1605, Thomas Percy was able to use his connections at the Royal Court to rent a cellar right under the House of Lords. They filled this vault with 36 barrels of gunpowder, which they hid under some firewood – and then the plotters waited.

Fawkes was to have lit the fuse to the barrels of  gunpowder (he declared he would have fired the powder when Sir Thomas Knyvett discovered it, had he been present; in fact, he was outside the house at the time), but it is believed that on October 26 Francis Tresham had warned his Catholic relative, Lord Monteagle, of the plot (in order to save Catholic lives) and the Catholic uprising that was to have ensued.

The anonymous letter read:

"My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care for your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance of this Parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightly of this advertisement but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow, the Parliament, and yet they shall not see who hurts them.. This counsel is not to be contemned, because it may do you good and can do you know harm, for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the latter: and I hope God will give you the grace to make gooduse of it, to whose holy protection I commend you."

Monteagle immediately showed the letter to Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury and Secretary of State, and the plotters were intercepted at the scene.

Torture and death

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. All except Fawkes, who jumped from a ladder while climbing to the hanging platform, breaking his neck and dying instantly. The punishment for treason involved the offender being dragged on hurdles through the streets to the execution-place, hanged, but taken down while still alive, castrated, disembowelled and cut into quarters.

Guy Fawkes appeared 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.

Conspirators and Others and Their Ends

Robert Catesby:  Shot and killed at Holbeach House November 8, 1605
Thomas Percy:  as above: then dug up and decapitated 
Kit Wright: ditto
John Wright: ditto
John Grant: Executed January 30, 1606
Robert Wintour: Executed January 31, 1606
Tom Wintour: Executed January 31, 1606
Ambrose Rookwood: Executed January 31, 1606
Robert Keyes: Executed January 31, 1606
Guy Fawkes: Executed January 31, 1606
Everard Digby: Executed January 30, 1606
Thos Bates: Executed January 30, 1606
Hugh Owen: Lived till old age in Rome
Francis Tresham: Died December 23, 1605 in prison  

Later (associated with Father Garnet)
John Wintour: April 7, 1606
Ralph Ashley: ditto
Steven Littleton: ditto
Humphrey Littleton: ditto
Fr Oldcorne: ditto (Worcester) 
Fr Garnet: May 3, 1606

Source

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Quotes

November 5 
A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving; 
to be used yearly upon the Fifth Day of November for the happy Deliverance of the King, and the Three Estates of the Realm, from the most Traiterous and Bloudy intended Massacre by Gun-Powder. 
The Service shall be the same with the usual Office for Holidays in all things; Except where it is hereafter otherwise appointed. 
If this Day shall happen to be Sunday, only the Collect proper for that Sunday, shall be added to this Office in its place. 
Morning Prayer shall begin with these Sentences. 
TURN thy face away from our sins, O Lord; and blot out all our offences. Psal. li. 9 
Correct us, O Lord, but with judgment, not in thine anger; lest thou bring us to nothing. Jere. x, 14 
I will go to my father, and will say unto him; Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee; and am no more worthy to be called thy son. S. Luke xii. 18, 19.
The Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used upon the Fifth Day of November, in the Book of Common Prayer, Church of England 1662. In 1858 The Earl of Stanhope successfully moved a motion that the government should ask the queen to abolish the liturgy because it was politically obsolete and unfair to Catholics. The main cause for the liturgy's abolition was a growing violent tendency of street celebrations.

Remember, 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; alternatively, “Please to remember the Fifth of November”

The fifth of November,
Since I can remember,
Gunpowder treason and plot:
This is the day that God did prevent,
To blow up his king and parliament.
A stick and a stake,
For Victoria’s sake,
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two:
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
Traditional rhyme on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 as spoken in Islip, Oxfordshire; as quoted by Sir Henry Ellis in his edition of John Brand (1744 - 1806), Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: Including the Whole of Mr. Bourne's ‘Antiquitates Vulgares’ (1777)   Source

Remember, remember the fifth of November 
Gunpowder, treason and plot. 
I see no reason why gunpowder treason 
Should ever be forgot. 
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes 
'Twas his intent 
To blow up the King and the Parliament 
Three score barrels of powder below 
Poor old England to overthrow 
By God's providence he was catched 
With a dark lantern and burning match. 
Holloa boys, holloa boys, 
Ring the bells ring 
Holloa boys, holloa boys, 
God save the King! 
Hip hip hooray 
Hip hip hooray. 

A penny loaf to feed ol' Pope 
A farthing cheese to choke him 
A pint of beer to rinse it down 
A faggot of sticks to burn him. 
Burn him in a tub of tar 
Burn him like a blazing star 
Burn his body from his head 
Then we'll say old Pope is dead. 
Hip hip hooray 
Hip hip hooray
Another version   Source

A rope, a rope, a rope to hang the pope.
Traditional English rhyme

Here is the pope that we have got
The whole promoter of the plot.
We’ll stick a pitchfork in his back
And throw him in the fire.
Traditional English rhyme
 
If you don’t give us one
We’ll take two,
The better for us, sir,
And worse for you.
Rhyme of boys in Old Purton, England, begging at doors faggots for the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night 

Please to remember the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
’Twas God’s mercy to be sent
To save our King and Parliament
Three score barrels laid below,
For old England’s overthrow,
With a lighted candle, with a lighted match
Boom, boom, to let him in.
Hertfordshire rhyme

Guy Fawkes Night, Britain 

Guy Fawkes Night (often referred to as Bonfire Night) is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks on November 5, 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. Despite the nature of the events commemorated, little political or sectarian significance is attached to Guy Fawkes celebrations these days.

In 1857 the popular guy was Nana Sahib who had brought military embarrassment to the British during the so-called Indian Mutiny, in which uppity colonials stood up for their rights. 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.

Turning the Devil's Stone, Shebbear, near Holsworthy, Devon, UK

On November 5, the villagers of Shebbear in Devon gather in the front of Berry House to 'turn the Devil's Stone' (or 'Devil's Boulder'), a great conglomerate rock that is turned every year to ensure good fortune for the village. The stone itself (which has an unnamed sibling about 750 metres to the north) is about two metres (about six feet) long and weighing about one ton. It is not from a local rock formation and is, in fact, an 'erratic'  – that is, a stone from elsewhere, such as those deposited in one of the Ice Ages. Perhaps its unusual character explains the mystery and traditions surrounding it.

There is a number of legends associated with the stone and how it arrived near in this place Holsworthy. The Devil is said to lie underneath it, or else Satan dropped it or threw it at the local church when he was cast out of heaven by St Michael. Another story suggests that it was the foundation stone for Henscott Church, and was moved every night by supernatural means, such as by witches or the Devil himself. Some say, apparently with no evidence, that it might have been an altar stone brought by ancient pagans, much in the manner of the Druids bringing sarsen, or Druid, stones from Wales to Stonehenge in Wiltshire. 

On this day, the bell-ringers meet at the parish church of St Lawrence at about 8 pm, and there they ring out a profoundly discordant cacophony of bells to rouse the Devil from under the stone, following which they make their way out of the church and, armed with crowbars, apply themselves to the task of turning the mysterious boulder. After this considerable exertion, they can rest from their labours, secure in the knowledge that Shebbear is safe from harm in the coming year.

It is said that the turning was neglected once during the First World War, perhaps because most of the adult male villagers were away in service, and misfortune immediately fell upon the village. A similar occurrence is said to have occurred during WWII.

How long the custom has been practised is unknown, but it is certainly very ancient and one local historian has described the ritual as "the oldest folk custom in Europe". However this might be, whether the date of the stone turning was related in past years to Mr Fawkes and his folk-association with wickedness, and hence the Devil, is unknown to your almanackist. 

The Modern Antiquarian website wryly notes: "The custom has nothing to do with increasing the trade in the nearby 'Devil's Stone Inn'."

Images of the Devil's Stone 1 2

Guy strikes again!
On November 5, 1990, a descendant and namesake of Guy Fawkes set fire to a gigantic replica of the Houses of Parliament for a charity fundraiser in Devon, England. There were also present sixty other descendants of the original Guy.

Thursday nearest November 5, Guy Fawkes Carnival, Bridgwater, Somerset, UK

“The Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival is now a huge event which has almost lost touch with its origins. It is the first of a circuit of carnival which take place over the following ten days. However, they do have their own unique firework display in the High Street itself, which is known as 'Bridgewater squibbing'. Over a hundred young people, representatives from numerous carnival clubs, form up in two facing lines. Each has a six-foot pole, attached to the end of which is a squib or roman candle. A row of fire is lit between the two lines, and on a loud blast from the leader's whistle, the two lines of pole-bearers light the touchpapers of their fireworks, which they then raise over their heads. There follows a stupendous, climactic firework display which can be seen for miles.

The carnival itself was first officially organised in 1882 and as it grew in size, so it was moved from Guy Fawkes night to Bridgwater's nearest early-closing day on Thursday. There are now over a hundred separate floats in the carnival, each one competing for the various prizes on offer, which is the reason why Guy Fawkes now plays only a minor role.”   Source

Lewes Bonfire Night, Lewes, Sussex, UK

As well as remembering Guy Fawkes, the town of Lewes also commemorates the memory of 17 Protestant martyrs who were burnt at the stake in the town during the Marian persecutions of 1555 - 1557.

Lewes Martyrs being burnt at the stake during the Marian Persecutions

“Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated at Lewes in Sussex with an enthusiasm that must make it the most spectacular of all bonfire nights. At about 6 o'clock in the evening, the numerous bonfire societies foregather at the War Memorial, where they lay wreaths, and on occasion sing hymns and hear a short sermon. Thereafter, there is the Grand Parade, with flaming torches and members of each society dressed up in striking costumes according to their chosen theme, such as Vikings, Zulus or Red Indians. Each society marches to its own bonfire site, where 'prelates' or 'archbishops' read a sermon before consigning effigies of the Pope and Guy Fawkes into the flames.

“It is not forgotten in Lewes that seventeen Protestant martyrs were burned to death here in the reign of Queen Mary, and some of the societies to this day carry ‘No Popery' banners. In 1679 a Benjamin Harris described the burning of a popish effigy, and in 1853 the first two bonfire societies were formed, the Borough and the Cliffe Society, and many more have been formed since. Parliament instituted 5 November as 'a holiday forever in thanksgiving to God for deliverance and detestation of the papistry, to commemorate Guy Fawkes' failed plot of 1605 to blow up the Houses of Parliament'. The people of Lewes are not likely to let the occasion pass unremarked.”   Source  

More at Wikipedia    Lewes Bonfire Council

Burning barrels, Ottery St Mary, UK

“The Burning Barrels is an incredible dose of English tradition on a night when everyone is out to have fun. A tradition which evolved in the 17th century to rid the streets of evil spirits is revived once more as children, then women, then generations of men run through the streets of Ottery St Mary carrying barrels which have been soaked in tar and set ablaze.

“Flames ten feet high lick the sky as sweating locals stagger beneath their weight. As one man tires, his brother, father or even grandfather steps in and takes over the burning load. And so it continues until past midnight.

“One can only wonder how this spectacular festival must have caught the imagination of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was born in the town in October 1772. Perhaps it was a nascent memory of the great poet's which led him to write this refrain in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

“This is a truly exhilarating event - running away requires considerable mobility and provides a thrill unlike any other, as a seemingly impenetrable sea of people miraculously parts to allow the burning barrels through. The streets of the village are completely overrun for the event and flames can be terrifying to young children, so it is definitely a bad idea to take any pushchairs/strollers or people in wheelchairs along.”   Source (pic)

“Ottery St. Mary is internationally renowned for its Tar Barrels, an old custom said to have originated in the 17th century, and which is held on November 5th each year. Each of Ottery's central public houses sponsors a single barrel. In the weeks prior to the day of the event, November 5th, the barrels are soaked with tar. The barrels are lit outside each of the pubs in turn and once the flames begin to pour out, they are hoisted up onto local people's backs and shoulders. The streets and alleys around the pubs are packed with people, all eager to feel the lick of the barrels flame. Seventeen Barrels all in all are lit over the course of the evening. In the afternoon and early evening there are women's and boy's barrels, but as the evening progresses the barrels get larger and by midnight they weigh at least 30 kilos. A great sense of camaraderie exists between the 'Barrel Rollers', despite the fact that they tussle constantly for supremacy of the barrel. In most cases, generations of the same family carry the barrels and take great pride in doing so.”   Source

Index of articles on folklore and other topics

Further reading

Gunpowder Plot overview

Was Guy Framed?

Bonfire Society Webring  

Gunpowder Plot Society

Guy Fawkes Carnival, Bridgewater, Somerset, UK  

Turning the Devil's Stone, Shebbear, near Holsworthy, Devon, UK

Lewes Bonfire Night, Lewes, Sussex, UK

Lewes Bonfire Council

Bonfire Night Diary

Burning barrels, Ottery St Mary, UK 

More on the burning barrels of Ottery

Fireworks safety

Read more at Chambers’s Book of Days (1879)

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