05 Nov 1605: The Gunpowder Plot

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November…”

Early in the morning on this day in 1605, Guy Fawkes was caught guarding a cache of gunpowder under London’s Parliament building. Fawkes and 12 other members of the Gunpowder Plot, all Catholics, intended to blow up the House of Lords later that day while the Protestant King James I delivered a speech.

The date is still marked with bonfires, particularly the burning of “Guys”, effigies of Fawkes. In a disappearing tradition, children carry their effigies around, asking for ‘a penny for the Guy’ so that they can buy fireworks.

The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, 1605 by Crispijn de Passe the Elder. (National Portrait Gallery)

Some more details on Fawkes and the Plot:

• the 36 barrels of gunpowder would have easily obliterated the building
• said Fawkes: “A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy”
• he and several co-conspirators were hanged, drawn & quartered within three months
• Samuel Pepys made the first mention of fireworks in his diary in 1660
• the “Guy Fawkes Mask” was famously used by the title character in the 2005 film V for Vendetta