Guy Fawkes – Gunpowder, treason and plot . .

Read Time:3 Minute, 9 Second

17th century English traitor, Guy Fawkes

reborn as 21st century hero

“Remember, remember the fifth of November; Gunpowder, Treason and Plot; I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason; Should ever be forgot.” This poetic little rhyme, still popular among British children today, continues to remind us why, on the night of November 5th, bonfires surmounted by cloth manikins or “Guys” are set alight in every town and village in Britain amongst a blaze of celebratory fireworks.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, was an attempt by marginalized Catholics to blow up the protestant English Parliament. It is a long, but interesting story, if you care to read about the plot in the “Age Of Treason” go HERE..

In a nutshell, there were 13 core conspirators and the man with the job of lighting the fuses on 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar underneath the parliament building, was a man named Guido (Guy) Fawkes. With 13 plotters and all their cohorts, keeping a secret became impossible and the plot was undone. Guy Fawkes was apprehended in the cellar beneath parliament and taken to the Tower of London.

After two days of “questioning” Fawkes lost his composure and signed a confession. He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. He cheated his executioners by jumping off the gallows and breaking his neck, but ignoring the fact he was dead, they did it to him anyway.

On 5 November 1605 Londoners were encouraged to celebrate the King’s escape from assassination by lighting bonfires. In England, November 5th has variously been called Guy Fawkes Night, Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night; the latter can be traced directly back to the original celebration of 5 November 1605. Bonfires were accompanied by fireworks from the 1650s onwards, and it became the custom to burn an effigy (usually the Pope). Effigies of other notable figures who have become targets for the public’s ire, such as Margaret Thatcher, have also found their way onto the bonfires, although most modern effigies are of Fawkes. The “guy” is normally created by children, from old clothes, newspapers, and a mask. During the 19th century, “guy” came to mean an oddly dressed person, but in American English it lost any pejorative connotation, and was used to refer to any male person.

According to the biographer Esther Forbes, the Guy Fawkes Day celebration in the pre-revolutionary American colonies was a very popular holiday. In Boston, the revelry took on anti-authoritarian overtones, and often became so dangerous that many would not venture out of their homes.

Guy Fawkes is “V”

The excellent movie, V for Vendetta, was originally a ten-issue comic-book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, set in a dystopian future United Kingdom imagined from the 1980s about the 1990s. A mysterious revolutionary who calls himself “V” works to destroy the totalitarian government, profoundly affecting the people he encounters.

The story depicts a near-future Britain after a nuclear war, which has left much of the world destroyed, though most of the damage to Britain is indirect, such as via floods, and crop failures. In this future, a fascist party called “Norsefire” has exterminated its opponents in concentration camps and now rules the country as a police state. “V”, an anarchist revolutionary dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask, begins an elaborate, violent, and intentionally theatrical campaign to murder his former captors, bring down the government, and convince the people to rule themselves.

Guy Fawkes Night celebrations have taken on a less religious tone in recent years, and Fawkes, condemned as traitor, is experiencing a re-birth as a hero. Anti-establishment groups such as “Anonymous” have adopted a Guy Fawkes personality.

Originally published at MadMikesAmerica on November 2, 2010

About Post Author

Holte Ender

Holte Ender will always try to see your point of view, but sometimes it is hard to stick his head that far up his @$$.
Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

13 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Anonymous
12 years ago

Excellent comments. Love the Carpenter ditty at the end 🙂

13 years ago

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Holte Ender, Michael Scott. Michael Scott said: RT @madmike1 Gunpowder, treason and plot . . . http://bit.ly/cT0zln […]

13 years ago

Great post! Loved the movie!

thejeanmachine
13 years ago

Just marvelous Mr. Holte. I loved the movie and having family in England makes me familiar with the entire story. Again many thanks for a wonderful read.

13 years ago

Interesting Holte, we were all taught this stuff in Scotland when I was a boy.
Actualy Scotland, especially Glasgow had a twist to the tradition. In the 1950s and early 60s, small groups of kids (age 6 – 14) used to make their own ‘guy’ and put the effigy in an old pram or wheelbarrow. This mobile ‘guy’ would then be positioned beside a popular shop or pub, and everyone who passed by would be asked for “A Penny for the Guy, please”
The collected money would be used to buy fireworks for the night of the 5th, and the ‘guy’ would end up on top of the bonfire.

SJ
Reply to  Holte Ender
13 years ago

@Holte,
The first time I read “V for Vendetta,” it was being serialized in black and white segments in a comics/sci-fi magazine called Warrior that came as an import here in the United States. I think I was 17 when I read Moore’s words “People should not fear their governments, governments should fear their people.” and I immediately shut the issue in my hands looking around if anybody on the subway train with me had read those words over my shoulder…
None of that comic book, or the movie adaptation has lost any of their power thankfully, I think the film accomplished things that the comic book could not (I get a lot of heat from contemporaries who are purists about Moore’s texts and thereby hate any adaptations)

Here’s my favorite monologue:

“Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, whereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle are celebrated with a nice holiday. I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now High Chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, -they are perspectives! So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.”

END OF TRANSMISSION

SJ
Reply to  Holte Ender
13 years ago

I agree 100%, it was a real watershed comic book and it’s a story, that has gotten better with every single adaptation and transliteration (The initial vignettes I read in serials was frankly very uneven and was more like a newspaper strip in form, but the ideas were there, Moore had written that he was particualry distressed after cameras were popping up on streets in the 1980s, I can’t imagine how he feels now) but as I mentioned I get pilloried by the faithful because I loved the movie. Possibly one of my favorite images is the very end, when the murdered dead return, and unmask themselves to see the destruction with their own eyes.
John Hurt, Hugo Weaving and Stephen Rea are masterful in that film. Great cast, well directed film.
-SJ

13 years ago

Wonderful, Holte. 🙂

13 years ago

Very interesting stuff Holte. Being drawn and quartered was certainly not a very nice way to go..Here is a interesting article that describes the legal rational for this sentencing..
http://francais.mcgill.ca/files/history/HistoricalDiscourses2008.pdf#page=82

Also stated jokingly about Fawkes, “the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions”.

Previous post The incredible spectacle of a murmuration of starlings (Video)
Polar bears suffer extinction due to global warming Next post Biggest Jump EVER in Global Warming
13
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x