Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated every year from November 4th to 5th in Britain and some other English-speaking countries. At the same time, fireworks are launched and an effigy of this legendary conspirator is burned. Recently, the grinning "Guy Fawkes mask" has also become a fashionable symbol, which is used in various protests. Meanwhile, this almost cult character was just the executor of other people's plans.
The Gunpowder Plot: The Guy Fawkes Scam
Catholic terrorists were going to blow up the English parliament with the king!
In 1603, the Scottish monarch James VI Stewart, who was named after the unification of the two kingdoms as James I. The British and Scots tried to forget the old feuds, came to the English throne. The watershed now ran not along ethnic lines, but along religious lines. The followers of the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches, who did not recognize the authority of the Pope, saw the main danger in their fellow Catholics. King James, in order not to lose the support of most of his subjects, periodically persecuted Catholics. Ordinary parishioners were levied additional taxes and limited in rights, priests were executed in the most savage ways. Naturally, the Catholics, who pinned certain hopes with James I, were disappointed. And then a group of young nobles staged a conspiracy against him, called the Powder.
Father Garnett's team
The idea was to lay barrels of gunpowder under the building of the Westminster Palace complex in which the House of Lords sat. And when the king will speak at the opening of the next session of parliament - blow up everyone at once. Further, it was necessary to raise uprisings in those counties where the influence of Catholics was strongest, using the king's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, as a banner.
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The inspiration behind the conspiracy was the head of the English Jesuits, Father Garnet. The actual leader was the nobleman Robert Catesby, who had previously participated in the rebellion raised against Queen Elizabeth I by her favorite, the Earl of Essex, and who then managed to get off with a large fine. He became a devout Catholic after the death of one of his children and the almost simultaneous death of his parents. Such, misfortunes Catesby could take as a heavenly punishment for marrying a Protestant.
Other participants in the conspiracy include Thomas Winter, who maintained contact with the government of Catholic Spain, and Thomas Percy, who monitored the mood in the highest spheres. Special hopes were pinned on a close relative of Catesby and another participant in the Essex rebellion, Francis Thrash, whose father was the informal leader of British Catholics and a very wealthy man. But at first he was not privy to the details of the conspiracy.
Guy Fawkes became the most famous, who should set fire to the fuse at the moment when the king began to deliver his speech to the lords. He was born in 1570 into the family of a humble court official. Fox became a devout Catholic under the influence of his stepfather (a Catholic priest). At the age of 22, he even went to the Netherlands to fight the Protestants there in the ranks of the Spanish army. He fought bravely and, being promoted to the rank of captain, decided to outline a project for organizing a Catholic uprising in his homeland. The Spaniards considered the plan frivolous, but introduced Fox to Winter, who was visiting them. Together they returned to England to carry out a terrorist attack, the like of which has not yet been known in history.
Fatal letter
Everything went great at first. To dig the hole, Catesby rented Vinegre House, adjacent to Westminster, and had no problem getting 36 barrels of gunpowder there. Then Percy made an agreement with the owners of the basement, which was located under the very House of Lords. After evicting a trading warehouse from there, the conspirators piled their deadly cargo in it, covering it with a floor of coal, stones and broken glass. The charge was enough to cause significant damage to the entire palace complex. As for the king and the parliamentarians, they had no chance of surviving the explosion.
The first alarm bell rang when it was announced that the opening of the session had been postponed from February 7 to October 3, and then to November 5, 1605. Thus, the risk increased that someone accidentally wandered into the basement and found barrels of gunpowder there.
However, month after month passed, and everything remained unchanged. The opening date of the session drew near, and the conspirators began to ponder what they would do after the destruction of the king and parliament. Money was required to incite rebellion in the counties. Then Catesby revealed his cards to Trash, who had recently lost his father and was taking over inheritance rights. He said that he supports the conspiracy, but he can highlight a mere trifle, since the inheritance is burdened with debts.
On October 26, at dinner, one of the leaders of the Catholic party, a member of the House of Lords, Baron Montingle, received a letter, an anonymous author of which advised him not to attend the session of parliament, since God planned to punish the wicked king with a "terrible blow."
Despite the late hour, Montingle hurried to the royal residence, where, in the absence of James I, he showed a letter to the Lord Keeper of the Minor Seal, the hunchback Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury.
The next day, the conspirators learned of the letter and immediately suspected Trasham of writing it. Firstly, his sister was married to Montingle, and secondly, he himself owed his life to the baron, who interceded for him after the Essex conspiracy. Catesby went to kill the traitor, but Thresh managed to convince him that he was not involved in the letter either by sleep or by spirit. Guy Fawkes, meanwhile, ran into the basement and reported that the kegs of gunpowder were intact. After some consultation, the conspirators decided to leave London before "X-day" and start fomenting the uprising. Guy Fawkes stayed in the capital to fulfill his mission.
Fiasco at the last moment
On the night of November 5, sent to inspect the adjacent buildings, the royal guards, led by Judge Nivet, discovered a cellar with gunpowder and Guy Fawkes emerging from it. The conspiracy, which had been under construction for over a year, fell apart in an instant. Guy Fawkes, realizing that everything was over, assured the guards: "If you had captured me inside, I would have blown up myself, and you, and the entire building."
In general, the arrested person behaved in front of the king and the investigators with such an easy gaiety that they were almost fascinated by him. However, when Fox announced that he could not betray his accomplices, he was sent to a torture machine. There he lost both his cheerfulness and his silence. The conspiracy picture became perfectly clear.
Arrests began. Catesby was already in Staffordshire with the main group of conspirators. While crossing the river, they wetted gunpowder and stopped at the house of one of the sympathizers. During the drying process, the gunpowder tore, and this revealed their location. Although there were no casualties, the building was soon surrounded by a squad of 200 people under the command of a local sheriff.
Catesby and Percy were killed in the battle. Winter was taken wounded. Trasham was arrested at his estate: he did not live to see the trial, dying, it is believed, from the shocks he had experienced.
Father Garnett and his colleague Father Oldcorn, along with two servants, hid in the Ebington family estate, in secret rooms. For several days, their pursuers methodically tapped the floors and walls, and finally found the Jesuits' refuge.
For the king, the capture of the conspirators was a successful public relations campaign that allowed him to get the go-ahead for emergency taxes from parliament. Naturally, this gave rise to an unconvincing version that the conspirators were manipulated by royal agents. The question about the author of the anonymous letter remains open: many believe that it was written by Baron Montingle himself, who through his spouse learned something about the conspiracy and decided to be known as the savior of the Fatherland. He did indeed receive an estate from the king and a prize of 500 pounds, which he very successfully invested in the East India Company. But in general, one gets the impression that the conspirators were simply out of luck. The barrels of gunpowder lay safely in the basement for almost a year. A few more hours - and Guy Fawkes would have done his job …