Guy Fawkes and the Gun Powder Plot

At this time of year a rather old tradition is observed where people across the UK light up the skies with fireworks to celebrate a rather well known character of English history, Guy Fawkes, or Guido Fawkes (the name he adopted whilst fighting for the Spanish).

You see, he had a plan, a rather devilish plan to blow up the House of Lords, his actual target was the assassination of King James the 1st during the state opening of Parliament, I guess he didn't want to take any chances, so went with blowing the lot up. The year was 1605, November the 5th and it would go down in history.

Guy Fawkes may have succeeded in his plan except for an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26th October revealing the whole dastardly plan, this led to Guy Fawkes being discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder, something he probably had great trouble explaining. This would have been enough to have flattened the House of Lords completely and taken the King with it.

Guy Fawkes did not act alone, he had help from fellow plotters John Wright, Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham but Fawkes is the one who is remembered as he was in charge of the explosives.

What a lot of people do not know is the rather cruel punishment the plotters received for what was an act of high treason, they were hang drawn and quartered, they were rather cruel in them days you see, no soft 10 year jail sentence back then.

What is also less well known is that in 1606 during the first sitting of Parliament since the plot, the observance of 5th November Act 1605 was passed, making celebrating the failure of the plot an annual feature of English life, the act remained in force until 1859. There are various names for this celebration, namely Fireworks Night, Bonfire Night or just Guy Fawkes Night.

It is customary to burn an effigy of Fawkes which is known as burning a Guy, these are usually made of old clothes and were exhibited in the street by children leading up to November the 5th in order to collect money for fireworks. That tradition seems to have died off these days and only the actual fireworks and bonfires remain.

"Penny for the Guy!" Children collecting money for fireworks

During the years since the plot there have been numerous rhymes about the event, here is one from 1742

Don't you Remember,
The Fifth of November,
'Twas Gunpowder Treason Day,
I let off my gun,
And made'em all run.
And Stole all their Bonfire away.

And another from 1903

The fifth of November, since I can remember,
Was Guy Faux, Poke him in the eye,
Shove him up the chimney-pot, and there let him die.
A stick and a stake, for King George's sake,
If you don't give me one, I'll take two,
The better for me, and the worse for you,
Ricket-a-racket your hedges shall go.

I think this event is best celebrated by visiting an organised fireworks display which are normally very inexpensive to attend and usually have really great firework displays, especially if you don't fancy venturing into the back garden yourself and fiddling with a flash light and matches, you can easily spend upwards of £30 pounds on what will be a very modest garden firework display.