Guy Fawkes foiled by Lord Salisbury’s ancestor at Hatfield House [Remember the 5th of November]

IT’S Bonfire Night tonight (Friday) with Hatfield House staging the area’s biggest November 5 firework display to commemorate the capture of mercenary Guy Fawkes.

EVERYONE remembers the fifth of November for Gunpowder Treason and Plot, but one part of the history that may have been ‘forgot’ is Hatfield’s role in the story.

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.

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.

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.

Today throughout Britain, on the night of November 5, we commemorate the capture of Guy Fawkes with bonfires and fireworks, and by burning an effigy of Guy.

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....The plotters were all executed, apart from Catesby and Percy, who had already been killed in a last stand while they resisted capture....

In 1605, 13 young men planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in what is now called "the Gunpowder Plot". The Gunpowder Plot came about after Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603. English Catholics, who had been persecuted under her rule, were bitterly disappointed when her successor, James I, who had a Catholic mother, failed to be more tolerant of their religion. Their leader Robert Catesby decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament, hoping to kill the King, the Prince of Wales, and the MPs who were making life difficult for Catholics. 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.

Guy Fawkes’ plot was ruined by Catholics who couldn’t stomach the loss of innocent (Catholic) life. But I’m a little conflicted over whether the failure was good or bad. The British Crown circa 1605 was among the most horrid, terroristic governments to ever feign democracy. And there is no issue of disloyalty by the Catholics; since they were excluded from government, the government could in no way be thought of as theirs. The crown certainly did not act in their interest.

So was Guy Fawkes a villain? Was he any different than the farmers who attacked the soldiers marching to Lexington and Concord? Does it matter that the troops in Lexington were wearing a military uniform rather than a parlaimentary uniform? Maybe... but I have to say that 400 years later to make such a national holiday over it seems, well... lame.

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