Gunpowder, Treason, and Plots

Most people here in the U.S. have no reason to remember November 5, except this year because it is Election Day. In the U.K., however, it is Guy Fawkes Day — a day every year of bonfires and fireworks! And of stuffed dolls in baby carriages being pushed around by children singing “Penny for the Guy!”

So who was this Guy Fawkes that is commemorated every year? He was part of a revolutionary plot to blow up Parliament and transform a Protestant government of King James I into a Catholic parliament with a Spanish monarch. It involved one of the revolutionaries, Guy Fawkes, moving 36 barrels of gunpowder into the cellar under the Parliament chamber where King James and the government were conferring on November 5, 1605. A whistle blower stalled the plot; the guards came in just as Guy Fawkes was about to light the fuse. He was arrested and hung, drawn, and quartered! The rest of the plotters were later arrested and met the same fate!

The goal was to overthrow the current government and replace it with a Catholic government and monarch. In fairness it must be said that the Protestant government had voted to evict the priests and seminarians, but this was a time of political upheaval and instability, not long after King Henry VIII had broken with Rome and established the Church of England. Protestants and Catholics were at odds all the time.

In the U.S. we wait until July 4 to celebrate Independence Day with fireworks. We have a reasonably stable government, but authoritarian forces of change are afoot. As in 1605, it takes work and will power to preserve “Government of the people, for the people, by the people,” where the wishes of the people are strengthened and preserved.

Let us celebrate 1776 and not go back to 1605!