Guy Fawkes Day

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Although here in the U.S.A. if you hear fireworks or see a bonfire today, you’ll probably think it’s to do with the election results, not a centuries-old custom.

 “Remember, remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder treason, Should ever be forgot.”

Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 into a well to do Yorkshire family.  He converted to Catholicism, which was illegal during the reign of Elizabeth I.  After marrying and selling the estate he’d inherited, he joined the Spanish Army, and fought with them in the Netherlands for twelve years.  He even went to Spain and asked the Spanish king to invade England (the request was denied). 

 A group of Catholics who wanted to assassinate the Protestant King James and replace him with him with a Catholic recruited Fawkes to help them, due to his military reputation.  The plan was to blow up the House of Lords on Nov. 5, 1605, because the king would be there for the opening day of Parliament.  (Note:  This was not the gorgeous building with the Big Ben clock that we all know.  That was built centuries later.)

Fawkes helped place explosives in a cellar underneath the building, rented by some of the conspirators, but he was caught.  He refused to divulge the names of the other plotters until tortured on the rack.  After that, he was condemned as a traitor to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.  (The “drawn” part means that your organs are cut out of your body, even though you may not quite be dead yet.)  But just as he was about to be hanged, on January 31, 1606, he either fell or jumped from the gallows and broke his neck.  Nevertheless, his body was quartered.

Hearing about the event, people made bonfires in celebration and within a few months, the government instituted the 5^th of November Act, a day of public thanks for the king’s escape.  It became known as Gunpowder Treason Day, and became linked not only with pro-government, but with anti-Catholic sentiment.  Effigies of the  Pope were burnt in bonfires, sometimes with living cats.  Gradually, however, the celebration grew more secular, as people started calling it Guy Fawkes Day and burning effigies of the plotter.  In the 18^th century, effigies of Guy Fawkes were carried by children begging “a penny for the Guy.”  The  Gunpowder Treason Act was repealed in 1859. 

Bonfire Night continued to be celebrated in Britain, and in the 20th century children still made Guy Fawkes effigies and collected donations, often for charity.  Furthermore, the American tradition of Halloween has encroached upon the U.K., and as the two holidays are so close in dates, they have started merging in the 21^st century.