Posted on 11/05/2012 11:27:58 AM PST by Alex Murphy
“Remember, remember the fifth of November,” instructs the old nursery rhyme, and offers a useful summary: “Gunpowder, treason and plot.” But we have never been sure quite what, or how, we should be remembering.
On 5 November 1605 a small gang of Catholics and minor noblemen plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament, during the State Opening at which King James I would be present. One of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was caught with the gunpowder before he set it off. The other plotters were soon caught, and all were executed.
By government decree, the date was soon declared a national day of thanksgiving and remembrance, but this was at first an anti-Catholic festival, and effigies of the Pope were burned. In the eighteenth century it became popularly known as Guy Fawkes night, and children collected pennies for an effigy called the “guy”; and then in the twentieth century, this became Fireworks Night. Fireworks are surely a tasteless way to commemorate an explosion that didn’t happen: if we enjoy the fireworks, surely we are also relishing precisely what Fawkes wished for? However, 5 November has always been an uneasy holiday, and a celebration, perhaps, of misdirected sympathy.
Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, written in late 1605 or early 1606, remembers the fifth of November not with fireworks but as a moment of terror. A copy of a manual of equivocation was found in the possession of one of the plotters: it advised English Catholics to “equivocate,” or to speak in ambiguous double statements under interrogation, thus both avoiding the sin of lying and also preserving their safety. The author of the pamphlet, Henry Garnet, was tried and executed for involvement in the plot, and in the second act of Macbeth the porter at the gate of the castle mocks this Catholic martyr. “Who’s there?” he asks, and continues: “here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven.” This is one of the very few decisive contemporary allusions in Shakespeare’s plays.
The subject was controversial. In 1603, King James of Scotland had inherited the throne of England, and two years later his subjects tried to assassinate him; shortly after, Shakespeare chose to write a play about the successful assassination of a Scottish monarch. He had every reason to tread carefully. Since James’ accession to the throne, Shakespeare’s company of players had been granted royal patronage, and performed under the official name of “The King’s Men”. They relied upon the king’s generosity, particularly when the commercial theatres were closed due to outbreaks of the plague and royal performances were a vital source of income. A modern analogy might be helpful here. Imagine, for example, that in the weeks after 11 September 2001, an American theatre company apply for public funds to stage a new play. They want to stage it in the White House, before the president and his invited guests. And the play will present a sympathetic view of a Muslim who hijacks a plane.
In controversy lies good drama; Shakespeare knew this. In courting danger, and in shocking the audience, his plays achieve their magic. They are never only of one side. But Shakespeare had, too, a more personal interest in the heated religious tensions of this specific moment. Immediately after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, new laws were passed which aimed to expose secret Catholics: church attendance was carefully watched, and on 5 May 1606 twenty-one people at Stratford upon Avon were charged with not having received Communion at church. Among them was Susannah, Shakespeare’s oldest daughter. We cannot know, now, if this suggests that she was Catholic, but we can know that she at this moment of political tension resisted going to church; that she felt, for a moment, on the side of those opposed to the king. This much Shakespeare knew, too, as he wrote a play at whose heart is the ambiguous, sympathetic portrayal of a man who kills a king and who is punished for it. 5 November, for us as for Shakespeare, is a reminder of what it might be to find oneself on the wrong side, or to be torn.
....Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, written in late 1605 or early 1606, remembers the fifth of November not with fireworks but as a moment of terror. A copy of a manual of equivocation was found in the possession of one of the plotters: it advised English Catholics to “equivocate,” or to speak in ambiguous double statements under interrogation, thus both avoiding the sin of lying and also preserving their safety. The author of the pamphlet, Henry Garnet, was tried and executed for involvement in the plot, and in the second act of Macbeth the porter at the gate of the castle mocks this Catholic martyr. “Who’s there?” he asks, and continues: “here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven.” This is one of the very few decisive contemporary allusions in Shakespeare’s plays.
The subject was controversial. In 1603, King James of Scotland had inherited the throne of England, and two years later his subjects tried to assassinate him; shortly after, Shakespeare chose to write a play about the successful assassination of a Scottish monarch. He had every reason to tread carefully. Since James’ accession to the throne, Shakespeare’s company of players had been granted royal patronage, and performed under the official name of “The King’s Men”. They relied upon the king’s generosity, particularly when the commercial theatres were closed due to outbreaks of the plague and royal performances were a vital source of income. A modern analogy might be helpful here. Imagine, for example, that in the weeks after 11 September 2001, an American theatre company apply for public funds to stage a new play. They want to stage it in the White House, before the president and his invited guests. And the play will present a sympathetic view of a Muslim who hijacks a plane.
Have you watched the movie “V for Vendetta” ?
I've never wanted to (anything with Natalie Portman = ecch]. Why?
“if we enjoy the fireworks, surely we are also relishing precisely what Fawkes wished for?”
Surely not. Who wrote this? Not all explosions are like fireworks, firstly. More importantly, Fawkes wanted to kill people and destroy property, not merely make an explosion.
It is an interesting “what if” to think of what would have happened if this “Gunpowder Plot” had succeeded. In our history, James I’s descendants married Roman Catholic (RC) queens and were reputed to be crypto-Catholic in their private lives. True, religion did cause the overthrow of his namesake grandson, James II in the “Glorious Revolution of 1688” by James II’s protestant daughter, Mary and her husband William of Orange (Netherlands). However this coup d’etat was as much a revolt against another Charles I absolutist monarch sa James II now blatant RC faith.
Nonetheless, England still tolerated a large number of RC nobility as long as they kept it private, for example the Howard Family as the Dukedom of Norfolk. Add to that the fact is that as the Reformation/Counter-Reformation wars died down, Britain became much more tolerant so long as RC exercise remained private and uncontroversial.
Now think of a Kingdom where the Monarch and Parliament were decimated by religious partisans. How that would have affected Charles I who at age 5 would have had a very long regency period, never a good thing for a monarchy or for the persons involved. What would be CERTAIN is that the blow-back against RC and RC partisans would have been enormous, especially with the memories of the problems just confirming the protestant succession through the Scottish Stuart line. Charles would have been probably raised much more in the Puritan traditions which would have matched more closely to the Scottish Presbyterian traditions.
By projection, Britain would have gone through a much longer period of RC intolerance and that would have affected history in ways not immediately apparent. As an example, think about Maryland and Lord George Baltimore, a RC convert who persuaded Charles I to grant an official RC colony, Maryland, 1632, north of the already established Virginia Colony. Would this generous act have occurred following a successful Gunpowder Plot? I’m inclined to doubt.
So my conclusion is that it was far better for the British Roman Catholics and their faith that the Gunpowder Plot was nipped before the fuse got to it.
I agree with you, Tublecane. Also, the bonfires in early November (and also the costumes, and burning of a scarecrow)were a repackaging of a folkloric ritual - the fires of Samhain, which marked the start of winter. Halloween, in the USA. Those people had enjoyed bonfire festivities long before Guy Fawkes.
But it is a pity that Bonfire Night was taken over and redefined as a festival of anti-Catholic propaganda.
I asked because Nov. 5 was the central element of the movie and IF you had seen it, was interested in what correlation you thought the movie had with today’s political condition.
I watched the movie again, just yesterday, and I noticed the exact same thing.
Hey Campion, you might want to read SES1066's post.
I'm a conservative, not a regicide, so I wouldn't have supported it in any case. The real regicides came later, in 1649, as I've pointed out previously.
Rather, I think his plays are full of them. Shakespeare seems to have relished walking the tightrope.
“Henry V” depicts a very Catholic king, more Spanish than English. So there may have been a message in it.
“Henry V” depicts a very Catholic king, more Spanish than English. So there may have been a message in it.
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