Posted on 11/05/2013 9:30:06 AM PST by Alex Murphy
The Guy Fawkes story, the Gunpowder Plot and the history of Bonfire Night linked to Hatfield House.
The current Marquess of Salisbury, who lives at Hatfield House, is a direct descendant of the man who uncovered the plot to kill King James I.
He is the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great (11 times) grandson of the gnarled monarch’s Machiavellian Secretary of State, Robert Cecil.
And Lord Salisbury’s ancestral seat at Hatfield House was also swapped for the original Cecil home at Theobalds, in Waltham Cross.
Cecil was one of the chief architects of Scottish monarch James’ accession to the throne of England in 1603.
James had angered Catholics after failing to offer them the toleration they craved.
Instead, he persecuted some in a series of grisly public executions for political advantage.
Anti-James sentiment reached boiling point for Gunpowder Plot mastermind Robert Catesby in 1604.
He concocted the plot to blow up Parliament and kill James the following year.
The plot was intended as the first step in a rebellion, during which James’ nine-year-old daughter could be installed as a Catholic head of state.
Catesby’s co-conspirators included Thomas Winter, Robert Winter, John Wright, Christopher Wright, Robert Keyes, Thomas Percy, John Grant, Ambrose Rokewood, Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham and Thomas Bates (Catesby’s servant).
The explosives were prepared by Guy ‘Guido’ Fawkes, a man with 10 years’ of military experience gained by fighting with the Spanish against the Dutch in the Spanish Netherlands.
The assassination attempt ultimately failed when conspirators baulked at the prospect of blowing up fellow Catholics in Parliament.
They resolved to warn a number of their co-religionists – a move which sealed their fate.
William Parker, the 4th Baron Monteagle, received an anonymous letter while at his house in Hoxton, east London.
He had it read out loud, possibly to warn the plotters that their secret was out, and handed it over to Cecil, who hatched a plan to catch the assassins in the act and round them all up.
The conspirators learned of the letter the following day, but went ahead with their plan, especially after Fawkes inspected the undercroft beneath Parliament and found that nothing had been touched.
Later, on November 5, a search party discovered Fawkes, who was placed under arrest, and his possessions were searched.
He was found to be carrying a pocket watch, matches and torchwood.
Enough barrels of gunpowder to decimate the building above were hidden beneath the pile of firewood.
Under torture, on November 7, 1605, Fawkes confessed that he had not acted alone and the full extent of the plot was unearthed.
The plotters were all executed, apart from Catesby and Percy, who had already been killed in a last stand while they resisted capture.
Their bodies were exhumed and their heads were impaled on spikes outside the House of Lords.
It would not be the last time English Catholics were screwed by false promises of toleration. William of Orange promised Catholic toleration, a large component of his Dutch army sent to England were Catholics, but the Whigs who backed William and Mary forced him to back down.
Remember, remember the 5th of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason that gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes Night is bonfires/fireworks night in Britain. Kids also used to create an effigy of Fawkes and wheel him around in a wagon, ringing doorbells and asking ‘penny for the Guy?’. Sometimes the effigy is burned in the bonfire.
Also they were fighting to make Britain Catholic and overthrow the prods which to be fair had been going on for a long time.
Now it’s muslims invading with permission from Parliament.
Just wait till the muslims make their move and face the homosexuals.
A BBC documentary recreated the building being used as Parliament at the the time and used the exact amount of gunpowder Fawkes had used.
The results? Click here.
Looks decisive.
It blowed up real good.
I once traveled from Stratford upon Avon to London on the evening of Nov. 5th; to see the bonfires across the country was very beautiful and evocative. My British facebook friends are currently complaining about the fireworks.
it’s always burned and kids make a decent amount of money off Guy Fawkes before they burn him.
Also kids from different areas collect wood and then protect their bonfire wood from other kids who are after stealing it.
Toffee apples, fireworks, pomegranate black peas are eaten.
Kids also sing that gunpowder treason should never be forgot too.Also they stand outside of pubs, shops etc saying penny for the guy
because many kids get the fireworks and throw them at cars or people or fireworks go off at all times of the night and just not tonight either.
This is why assassinating Hitler would have been wrong too. Just because Catholics were being murdered by law, is no excuse. It’s like abortion - after a while, the sin will devour itself. The muslims have come.
My bestest facebook friend is concerned about his elderly dog who is suffering during the celebrations. Anyone who owns a dog goes through this.
An interesting aside, one ally of the William of Orange was...You probably didn't guess the pope, but...He was. The War between William and James was just a small part of a larger war encompassing much of Europe. Both Pope Alexander VIII and William of Orange were leaders in the League of Augsburg. By aligning himself with the French, Ex-King James placed himself against the pope. Pope Alexander VIII ordered a special Te Deum in honor of William's victory at the Boyne. I've read Alexander referred to as "the pope who betrayed the Catholics." Politics, eh?
Oh, the tangled web we weave...
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