1605 The Gunpowder Plot exposed.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November:
Gunpowder, treason and plot!
I can think of no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
The open practice of Roman Catholicism had been banned since 1559 but many English families remained loyal to the Catholic church. They had hoped that the accession of King James to the throne in 1603 would lead to religious toleration. James was, after all, the son of Mary Queen of Scots the Catholic martyr, and a man known to be in favour of peace. But both extreme Protestants, the Puritans, and Catholics were to be disappointed by the king’s religious policies. It was the opinion of William Cecil, the advisor to James, that “the state would never be in safety, where there was toleration of two religions. For there is no enmity so great as that of religion, and they that differ in the service of God can never agree in service of their country”.
A group of disappointed Catholics decided that violence was the answer. They planned to blow up the opening of the 1605 Parliament and, at a stroke, wipe out the leadership of Protestant England. The king, his sons, the English aristocracy, and all of the bishops of the Anglican Church were expected to die in the explosion. Princess Elizabeth (age 9) would be abducted and made a figure-head queen while a general uprising of Catholics would seize the nation’s strong points. Barrels of gunpowder had been placed under the Houses of Parliament but one of the conspirators foolishly warned a Catholic nobleman to stay away from the opening and he alerted the authorities. Explosives expect Guy Fawkes was arrested at the site and his fellow conspirators were rounded up; they were all tried and gruesomely executed.
November 5 became known as Guy Fawkes Day and the date became a national, patriotic, anti-Catholic holiday for centuries.