Remember, remember

Remember, Remember,
the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason
why Gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

This Friday is the 5th of November, "Bonfire Night" or "Guy Fawkes night". Most towns and cities will be awash with bonfires and the skies will be lit up with the sound of fireworks. Traditionally we eat toffee apples and bonfire toffee and burn effigies of "Guy" which children (not so much any more) go to efforts to create from whatever they can find and go out into the streets and ask passers by "Penny for the Guy?". But what does it all mean?

In 1605, a plot to destroy The House of Lords was discovered. A group of Catholic conspirators planned to wait for the state opening of Parliament, an event that King James I would be present at, and destroy it. Their aim was to kill the new Stuart king and restore Catholicism once and for all. The ringleader was Robert Catesby and his co-conspirators were Thomas Wintour, Robert Wintour, Guy Fawkes, John Wright, Christopher Wright, Robert Keyes, Thomas Percy, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham, and Thomas Bates.

In late October that year, a Catholic Lord was sent a letter warning him not to attend the state opening. He promptly showed it to the King, upon which James I ordered a thorough search of the undercrofts beneath the Parliament building. Guy Fawkes was caught redhanded with a pile of kindling on 5th November and was arrested. At the time he claimed to be working alone but later after interrogation (and no doubt considerable torture) gave up his co-conspirators. All the men were arrested and executed (aside from Catesby and Percy who were already dead - but they were exhumed and their corpses decapitated) and their heads placed on pikes outside the old Parliament building. In 1606, an act was passed to make the event a national holiday and the festivities of a bonfire and fireworks were taken from the festival of Samhain to create a thanksgiving of the failed plot.

History puts Guy Fawkes at the very centre of the plot, but undoubtedly the ringleader was Catesby who had already petitioned the Spanish king to invade England. It may even be argued that Fawkes was the muscle and not the brains behind the plot due to his history of being a mercenary, despite being one of the early recruits to the plot.

Had it succeeded, the plot would have undoubtedly killed the King, leading Anglican Bishops and many members of the nobility. The plotters intended to install James I youngest child, his daughter Elizabeth, to the crown and return England to Catholicism.

Not bad enough so they dug up dead people and beheaded them anyway.

They did the same to Oliver Cromwell after the Restoration, his corpse was hung, drawn and quartered.

That's just funny! Overkill at it's best.

lol. It was symbolic. Defiling corpses probably has some biblical meaning, or some unconscious social idea behind it.