Terror circa 1605

I was going to title this post "Hey Kids, let's blow up Parliament!" but then I thought I might fall foul of the new Terrorism Act which has provisions against glorifying terrorism (I think, it's hard to tell exactly what's in this law which passed by 1 vote without doing some homework).

The funny thing is the UK parliament has a whole host of events and exhibits on right now which you could argue are glorifying terrorism*. Of course, this particular act of terrorism happened 400 years ago tomorrow, and didn't work out too well for the terrorists. They weren't too bright.

Four hundred years ago, Guy Fawkes and his cabal of Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up Parliament by renting a cellar underneath Parliament (somebody didn't do their security risk assessment very well) and packing it with gunpowder. They were going to wait until the King was visiting a packed legislative house, light the fuse, and then run like hell! (Well, actually they were supposed to be slow fuses and Fawkes planned to leave by boat)

The conspirators were found out when Lord Monteagle, a prominent Catholic, was sent a letter warning him not to attend the special session of Parliament. Somebody did some nosing around and they found 36 kegs of gunpowder in the coal cellar.

I won't go into all the details - you can find them in this fact sheet (link to a pdf file) - but it was straight out of a Hollywood movie (or as they would have said at the time a Shakespeare play). Guy Fawkes was tortured and gave up some information (but not much - you torture advocates). Other conspirators, including the main man in the plot - Robert Catesby - were tracked down and some were killed and some captured at a shoot out in the West Midlands.

This event has captured my imagination from my youth - I believe it must have been covered in a book that VolMom used to read to me called The Life and Times of John Smith (which I can't find a link to - shame, it's a great book). But of course, growing up in Tennessee, I wasn't aware of all the attendant ceremony, celebration and commemoration of the busting up of The Gunpowder Plot. These are popularly celebrated through "penny for the guy" and "bonfire night".

I first moved over to the UK in late October and soon after I began noticing children lying on rags, some of them stuffed or bunched up and asking for money. I was very disturbed by this, I thought "What kind of country have I come to that homeless children are begging in the streets?" I finally said something to the Vol-in-Law who just started laughing and explained that it was the "Penny for the Guy**" - kids traditionally made an effigy of Guy Fawkes and then hung around asking passers by for money (kind of like trick-or-treating for cash). This effigy was then traditionally burned on the night of 5 November on the bonfire to celebrate Protestant dominion over the "Papist plot".

Many families light bonfires and set off fireworks on the evening of 5th of November and some local authorities have fairly big fireworks nights and lay on special events.

The popularity of Bonfire night has begun to wane, some say it's due to the increasing popularity of Halloween (and the "Americanisation of Britain") and some say it's because the holiday is now perceived as too anti-Catholic. I don't know, but here's another tradition of the night, chanting this:

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

I'm really excited this year and I hope to be able to drag the Vol-in-Law up to the Houses of Parliament tomorrow to take part in some of the fun activities.

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*They would probably argue that they were glorifying the disruption of the plot and capture of the conspirators, but there are always a group of people in the England who try to rehabilitate the reputation of the conspirators or at least explain or justify their actions. See this website -which treads this line carefully.

**By the way, if you just give them a penny, the kids look at you askance. They expect your donation to be to the value of a penny in 1605 apparently and if you give them less than 50 pence (about 80 cents) they can get pretty surly.

Tags: Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder plot, Terrorism, London