Posted on 11/05/2007 4:28:30 PM PST by Alex Murphy
November 5 was celebrated in New England as Pope Day (that is, Anti-Pope Day). The neighborhoods of Boston would make images of the Pope, the Jacobite Pretender, and Guy Fawkes, and burn them; there were also fun-filled brawls in which one neighborhood's gang would try to steal the images of another.
Washington banned these festivities in his General Orders, November 5, 1775 (see the George Washington Papers website at the Library of Congress to read the original). He calls it "a ridiculous and childish custom," especially at a time when we are "solliciting, and have readily obtain'd, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada." We were hoping to drive the British out of Canada; our effort would fail before the walls of Quebec on New Year's Eve.
That was realpolitik; more interesting, and admirable, was the decision of Washington, and many other founders, to attend mass during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. George Mason didn't like the ringing of the bell, which he compared to the signal for raising the curtain at a puppet show. But he, and the others, went to show that these were good Americans too.
The one prominent founder who was seriously anti-Catholic was New York's John Jay, grandson of Hugenot refugees from Louis XIV. He tried to insert anti-Catholic provisions into New York's first constitution, but he was blocked by his young friend Gouverneur Morris. Morris thought Catholics were superstitious, stupid, and immoral (the father of his girlfriend's child was an RC bishop), but he thought religious belief and worship were beyond the reach of the state.
The Continental Army did not torture spies. It hanged them by the neck until dead.
Among 13 young men was Guy Fawkes, Britain's most notorious traitor and Roman Catholic convert. He was arrested in Parliament's cellar with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes was tried, convicted, and executed for treason.
Even now, four hundred years later, the reigning monarch only enters the Parliament once a year for the State Opening of Parliament. And before the opening, according to custom, the Yeomen of the Guard searches the cellars of the Palace of Westminster.
Happy Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night...
As a child in New Zealand this was a great day and evening for the kids...
Every school child knew the story and learned it as history in school...
We would compete with kids from other areas of town to make the biggest bonfire...
Starting sometime in October, or even September LOL we would collect old tires, broom, a local big strong shrub/weed and old scrap lumber...
The big boys would make a teepee frame arrangement of 3 long saplings and then help us fill in the rest...
Add a “Guy” made of old clothes like a scarecrow and stuffed with straw and paper and twigs, an old sack for a head complete with drawn on face etc, and an old hat...His clothes and head were connected with 4 Penny nails (the big ones)and his feet woould be covered with a Dad’s old boots..
On the night of Nov 5 the whole street area would be down at the bonfire to watch the fire, every Dad, Mum and childfire off fireworks bouight at Jimmy On Lee’s greengrocery store, drink cocoa and play with sparklers and run up and down the street with Roman candles..
Catherine Wheels, and Jumping Jacks were popular and sky rockets were a wonder...and beautiful streams of colour lit the night...
This was our only night of fireworks for the year so we usually saved our pennies and had a lot...
I’ve been in the US 36 years but I still miss this great night every year...
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to study the Catholic pedophile priest problem back in 2002. A surprising choice, if it's the same John Jay (yes, yes, I know - the original John Jay is dead)!
Remember, remember the 5th of November.....
The same John Jay who was an author of some of the Federalist Papers and appointed by Washington as the nation’s first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
I'm superstitious, stupid, and immoral.
I'm also Catholic, and the blood (which I receive weekly) of my saviour (who died for all of these, my sins) wipes them all away.
Quote from the article: “He tried to insert anti-Catholic provisions into New York’s first constitution, but he was blocked by his young friend Gouverneur Morris.”
Strange that they don’t mention that the bishop was none other than the scandalous Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. He was more diplomat than bishop, and managed to serve King Louis XVI, the French revolutionaries, Napoleon, and the restored Bourbon monarchy without losing his head. He resigned from his bishopric during the revolution, was excommunicated, and managed to outlive EVERYBODY.
OK....so we got rid of Guy Fawkes day and we replaced it with Halloween.........
Doesn’t make sense to me.
How interesting. I’ve never knew about Guy Fawkes Day either. Of course I think it’s far more fun boring our Catholic friends with tedious theological tidbits than roasting them at the stake.
It takes a lot longer to burn someone at the stake when the fire never exceeds room temperature :D
And some views never change in this country.
Didn't I see a few dozen posts from John Jay here on FR not long ago? ;)
Times have changed.
The socialist busy bodies who now govern New Zealand take a dim view of your festivities and a total ban on fireworks is being talked about by Prime Minister Helen Clark.
It wouldn't surprise me if the same situation eventually came to pass in the UK, also. The socialists who govern there seem to be intent on micromanaging peoples' lives and if BBC reports are to be believed, "Bonfire Night", (as it's known over there), is a busy time for the fire service.
As the religious roots of the festival are long forgotten and making whoopee with fire is now its main raison d'etre, I doubt it will be too long before the nanny state cans it.
Did you burn the Pope in effigy? How was the bonfire?
Talleyrand was the one who once famously said “Worse than a crime, it was a mistake” or words to that effect. I have forgotten the act to which he was referring, but the sentiment itself is too funny to forget.
Well, then, coming home by Drinker’s Alley to get a new shirt which a French Vicomte’s lady was washing to take the stiff out of (I’m always choice in my body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a paper of buttons at us. He hadn’t long landed in the United States, and please would we buy. He sure-ly was a pitiful scrattel—his coat half torn off, his face cut, but his hands steady; so I knew it wasn’t drink. He said his name was Peringuey, and he’d been knocked about in the crowd round the Stadt—Independence Hall. One thing leading to another we took him up to Toby’s rooms, same as Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The compliments he paid to Toby’s Madeira wine fairly conquered the old man, for he opened a second bottle and he told this Monsieur Peringuey all about our great stove dispute in the church. I remember Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos dropped in, and although they and Toby were direct opposite sides regarding stoves, yet this Monsieur Peringuey he made ’em feel as if he thought each one was in the right of it. He said he had been a clergyman before he had to leave France. He admired at Toby’s fiddling, and he asked if Red Jacket, sitting by the spinet, was a simple Huron. Senecas aren’t Hurons, they’re Iroquois, of course, and Toby told him so. Well, then, in due time he arose and left in a style which made us feel he’d been favouring us, instead of us feeding him. I’ve never seen that so strong before—in a man. We all talked him over but couldn’t make head or tail of him, and Red Jacket come out to walk with me to the French quarter where I was due to fiddle at a party. Passing Drinker’s Alley again we saw a naked window with a light in it, and there sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey throwing dice all alone, right hand against left.‘Says Red Jacket, keeping back in the dark, “Look at his face!”
‘I was looking. I protest to you I wasn’t frightened like I was when Big Hand talked to his gentlemen. I—I only looked, and I wondered that even those dead dumb dice ’ud dare to fall different from what that face wished. It—it was a face!
‘“He is bad,” says Red Jacket. “But he is a great chief. The French have sent away a great chief. I thought so when he told us his lies. Now I know.”
LOL
With deference to my Brit and Northern Irish friends...
Tragically, its a custom that is dying out in the UK.
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