REMEMBER, REMEMBER ... GUY FAWKES NIGHT

 

We all have happened to see the mask below: pale skin, goatee, a thin moustache. But do you know where it comes from? That is Guy Fawkes’s mask.

·     WHO  WAS GUY FAWKES?

Guy Fawkes was originally from Yorkshire, he was born in 1570 and he was raised by his catholic stepfather. In the period in which he was born ,  Queen Elizabeth I consolidated the autonomy of the Anglican church from the Catholic Church of Rome and with her Britain became one of the most important powers in Europe.

At 21, in 1591, Fawkes left Britain to join William Stanley’s Anglo-Irish troops; Stanley was a Catholic commander who had defected to join the Spanish in 1587. Fawkes joined Stanley to defeat the protestant provinces of the Netherlands during the Dutch war of independence  which only ended in 1648.

When Queen Elizabeth I died, James I Stuart   ascended the throne and he followed Elizabeth’s policy. In that period Fawkes was in Spain looking for support to destroy the heretics and to end the persecution of Catholic christians by the British government.

·         THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

So in 1604 Guy Fawkes started to organize a conspiracy to kill  king James I with a group of 12 people. Their plan was called “The Gunpowder Plot”. The day of the attack, the 5th November 1605, something went wrong; a few hours before the execution of the plan, Fawkes was found with the fuse in his hand connected to 36 barrels of gunpowder placed in the basement of Westminster, those barrels were connected to the House of the Lords. All the attackers were caught,  tortured and sentenced to death. Fawkes’s body was dismembered and the pieces of his body went around the kingdom to warn whoever wanted to follow his ideas.

 

·         GUY FAWKES’S NIGHT

“Remember Remember! The fifth of November, Gunpowder treason and plot, I know of no reason why the Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot”. These words are from a popular children’s nursery rhyme to remember when “by God’s providence” they captured Fawkes and his men and   the king was saved.

Still today, the night of 5 November is celebrated with songs, fireworks and the burning of the mask of Guy Fawkes or of his puppet.

FUN FACTS

·         Guy had two sisters called Anna and Elizabeth, same name of the wife and the daughter of James I

·         In the basement of the palace, under the House of the Lords, Fawkes used 36 barrels of gunpowder, 25 times more than was needed to blow up the building.

·         The name of the pub where Guy and his company organized the attack is “Duck and Drake”.

·         When Guy was arrested he said that his name was John Johnson.

MATTEO T., 3scB