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.
I’m superstitious, stupid, immoral, and quite a few other things too.
I’m also Protestant, and my Saviour shed his blood to wipe it all away a couple of thousand years ago.
That still happens in some parts of the UK.
2. He was the last man to enter Parliament with honorable intentions.
Catesby and his cronies, particularly Guy Fawkes, were the Al-Qaeda of their day.
However, remember they weren’t executed for being Catholics. They were executed for treason.
Its a very good, but very common, joke :)
It was the event of the year for the kids when I was young in new Zealand...We also called it “Bonfire Night”..
We prepared for the night weeks in advance..like a general prepared for a battle...Operation Overlord had nothing on our strategy...
We would compete for the biggest bonfire etc.. No prize just the satisfaction...
The older kids would set up long thin tree trunks like a tee pee...
Then the little kids would help build it..taking time to play inside...
Broom, old old tires, a guy made with straw, a shirt, pants and boots and held together with 4 inch nails...
(Although we knew about the English practice of “A penny for the Guy” I dont remember anyone doing that in my part of NZ...)
We would work on it for weeks...checking the other bonfires around town as we built ours..ours had to be the biggest... :)
Meanwehile Jiommy On Lee the only Chinese man in town and the only greengrocer, would have ordered lots of fire works ... and sold them all days before Nov 5th...
They came with both Chinese and English written on them...renamed to English names...
to names of the extinct volcanoes in NZ..Mt Eden, Mt Egmont, etc
There were Sparklers that the little kids wrote their names with,
Roman Candles that were long enough to hold onto and run with,
Sky Rockets that the big kids placed into in a big beer bottle and fired into the sky...
Catherine Wheels that the big kids would hammer onto fence posts with a nail..
Jumping Jacks that would chase giggling or crying little kids...
and Bangers, lots of them, that we lit and threw..
Tiny ones, medium ones, they came all tied up together in 2 rows...
Armed with a hammer, nails and a beer bottle..and our crackers in a big brown paper bag, we were set for the night...
We would start at our bonfire, out side of town, and then go into town and visit the others during the evening...
At every bonfire mothers had abundant cocoa for everyone... and sometimes biscuits (cookies)..
Y&es I’ve been in the US for nearly 40 years and I still miss Bonfire Night...
Yes I remember doing the same things when I was a kid. It was a magical night was bomfire night.
The one last night was a definite damp squib, in more ways than one. Or perhaps Im just older and more jaded.
Yep...the first Supreme Court Justice!
“I knew nothing about Guy Fawkes Day until today...”
?! Better ping the mod, I think someone must have been hacking your FR account every Nov 5th for years and years and posting Guy Fawkes Day articles!
Freegards
Nonsense!
Catholics are experts at how G-d could not have possibly created the universe through an act of omnipotent supernatural power, but had to rely on "secondary natural means" to do it.
Of course, when it comes to anything else . . . well, that's something else.
Better contact your insurance agent & have him send you a fresh calendar! I made that statement six years ago.
Ha! My apologies, I didn’t even look at the date.
Freegards
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