It was in the afternoon of 4th November 1605 - the day before King James was due to open Parliament - that the Earl of Suffolk discovered a man in a cellar beneath the House of Lords. He said his name was John Johnson and claimed that the timbers and coal he was guarding were his master's winter fuel supply.

A more extensive search later that night - now the wee small hours of the Fifth of November -  revealed that beneath the wood and coal was hidden the small matter of 36 barrels of gunpowder.

A message was sent to the King's minister, Robert Cecil, whilst John Johnson was arrested and sent to the Tower of London.

King James himself authorised in writing the use of torture on the captive - instructing "the gentler tortures” to be used first before advancing to harsher methods. “God speed you with your good work.” he wrote.

Apart from revealing his true identity as Guido Fawkes, the prisoner gave away next to no information about what became quickly known at the time as the Gunpowder Treason.

So who was responsible for this, what were their aims?

The race was on to find out...

The mastermind behind the Gunpowder Plot was Robert Catesby, a charismatic, flamboyant character who was a persuasive and compelling speaker. He came from a family of dissident Catholics (“recusant” was the term used at the time) based near Stratford-upon-Avon. His father had suffered heavy fines for non-compliance with the new religion and whilst not impoverished, the family fortune was not quite what it was.  Robert Cateby had taken part in the Earl of Essex's Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I only a few years earlier and had been imprisoned for a short time in the Tower.

Catesby had hoped that with the ascension of James VI of Scotland to the English throne (as James I of England) the treatment of Catholics would be improved. Indeed a Catholic delegation from England prior to the Queen’s death had established that the King would "tolerate" the mass once on the English throne.  These was good reason to believe
him: James VI's mother (Mary, Queen of Scots) was a Catholic Martyr, he himself was married to a Catholic (Ann of Denmark).

But Robert Cecil, the new King’s chief minister, was vehemently anti-catholic and after Elizabeth's death there had been a crackdown on "Popery."

Catesby first divulged his intentions to one of his cousins, a soldier and lawyer Tom Winter and to a close friend, Jack Wright, reputed to be the best swordsman in England. Both these men lived nearby and both had taken part in the Essex Rebellion - as had the Earl of Southampton who was patron to Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon’s most famous son.

Catesby's manservant, Thomas Bates, was also sworn into the group from an early stage.

They agreed that Guy Fawkes, an explosives expert fighting as a mercenary in the Spanish Army in the Netherlands, was the best man to carry out their treacherous plan. Fawkes had been at school in York with Jack Wright.

Tom Winter - who also spoke Latin, French and Spanish - was well connected within Spanish circles in London. He and Guy Fawkes had both spent time in Spain in the early 1600s talking up their cause and even trying to persuade Felipe III to invade England and overthrow the Protestant Queen. This was unlikely to happen: Spanish landings in Ireland in 1592 had been quickly repelled and the memory of the defeat of the Armada was still fresh but Winter did receive some funding. It is thought that whilst in Spain, Fawkes had taken the sobriquet Guido, the name that he used to sign his confession.

Tom Winter went over to the Low Countries to recruit his old friend.

The bonds between the conspirators were indeed tight. Winter’s older brother Robert was brought into the conspiracy as was Jack Wright’s brother Christopher. So also were their brothers-in-law, John Grant who was married to Tom and Robert Winter's  step-sister and Thomas Percy who was married to the Wright brothers’ sister Martha. Percy had taken part in the delegation to visit the Scottish King.

Later on, as their plans developed, the conspirators required more money - and more people. Another of the Winter's and Catesby’s cousins Sir Francis Tresham - his mother’s sister’s son - was recruited.

But with more people there was inevitably greater risk of exposure or betrayal.

Gunpowder was obtained in small quantities from a variety of sources so as not to arouse suspicion. It was stored in a safe house rented by Catesby across the Thames in Lambeth.

On 25 Mar 1605 Thomas Percy signed a lease on the cellar beneath the House of Lords.

The cellar is not all it is imagined to be. In the 17th century, the Palace of Westminster was almost a village of its own:  a warren of meeting rooms, apartments, chambers, shops, taverns, bakeries and stalls. Samuel Pepys would write in his diary sixty years later about procuring prostitutes here.

The cellar itself was actually at ground level directly below the House of Lords and it thought to have formed part of the original kitchens of the medieval palace. It was probably a storehouse.
It also had access to the river.

Guido Fawkes was installed here under the alias John Johnson.

Twenty barrels were rowed across the river in the dead of night. More was added later and by 20 July 1605 the conspirators had a total of 36 barrels in place.

Then, on 28 July it was proclaimed that because of the risk of plague the convening of Parliament was prorogued (an ancient term still in use today - it means suspended) until Tuesday 5 November.

This gave pause for thought - for some of the conspirators had doubts about the morality of their plan.

Some of the conspirators knew members of the House of Lords who were closet Catholics. Tom Winter was employed as secretary to Lord Monteagle, for example, and he was married to Sir Francis Tresham’s sister. Monteagle had been the Earl of Essex’s deputy in Ireland and he too had been imprisoned in the Tower for his part in the Essex rebellion. If the plotters were to proceed with their plan, Monteagle and the other catholic Lords would all be blown to bits.

Robert Catesby would have none of it. The nature of the disease, he said, required so sharp a remedy. The necessity of the Catholics was such that it must needs be done.

By October the final details of the conspiracy had been worked out.

Guido Fawkes would light the fuse and escape down the Thames to the continent. Princess Elizabeth, the King’s 9 year old daughter who lived at Coome Abbey, near Coventry, would be kidnapped and later installed as puppet queen. There would be an uprising in the Midlands. The Spanish would be briefed by Guy Fawkes and send support.

The plotters held a series of supper parties in London taverns which appear to have included other guests as a useful cover. On 9 October playwright Ben Johnson, who had many associations with recusants, attended one at the Irish Boy in the Strand. Others were held at the Mermaid Tavern - run by Shakespeare’s “dearest friend” William Johnson.

The Shakespeare connection is not contrived. William Shakespeare knew Robert Catesby and the Winter brothers from Stratford upon Avon.  His patron, the Earl of Southampton, had of course been part of the Essex rebellion along with the main conspirators. It is no coincidence that Shakespeare’s next play was about regicide: Macbeth.   Shakespeare’s
daughter Judith, would later marry yet another cousin of the Winter’s.

Then, on Saturday 26 October, something happened.

That October Saturday, whilst at supper with some guests at his house in Hoxton, Lord Monteagle received a letter.

At about seven in the evening his servant, Thomas Ward, had been accosted in the street by a stranger and given a letter to place before his master.

Monteagle found the letter difficult to read - and asked for the help of his guests in making it out:

My Lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care of your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this Parliament; for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your county where you may expect the event in safety. For though there be no
appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament; and they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be condemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm; for the danger is passed as soon as you have burnt the letter. And I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy Protection I commend you.

The letter, of course was unsigned.

What did it all mean? Was it a prank, some foolish nonsense, or was it something more serious?  Monteagle debated this momentarily with his guests, then summoned a horse and rode straight to Whitehall to talk to Robert Cecil.

So what did the Government know? And when did they know it?

Lord Monteagle’s servant, Thomas Ward, had family connections with the Wright brothers. Christopher Wright’s wife, Margaret Ward, may actually have been his sister. Ursula Wright, sister to the conspirators, had also married a Ward.

While Monteagle was away in Whitehall, Ward sent a message to his master’s secretary, Tom Winter, who was lodging at the Duck and Drake in the Strand.

Winter and Catesby (who was with the Wright brothers at the house in
Lambeth) quickly realised that they had a traitor - so to speak - in their midst. They concluded that it must be their cousin, Sir Francis Tresham (Monteagle’s bother-in-law) and decided to tackle him, vowing to shoot him on the spot if necessary.

But Tresham protested his innocence and both Catesby and Winter left convinced he had not betrayed them.

At this stage Winter tried to persuade Catesby to abandon the treason but Catesby was determined to continue, convinced that the letter was too vague.

So who wrote the Monteagle Letter, now in the Public Records Office?

There is nothing new about religious extremists with beards.

The King’s chief minister and spymaster, Robert Cecil, knew this and had a large network of spies to provide him with information.

A report by a Captain William Turner, a spy in the Netherlands, in April 1605 had mentioned that Guy Fawkes would be introduced to ‘Mr Catesby’ and other ‘honourable friends of the nobility who would have arms and horses’ in preparation for what was thought to be an invasion.

Cecil may have picked up on whispers, rumours, the 17th century equivalent of chatter. It is quite possible that Cecil himself wrote the letter (or arranged for it to be written) and then waited for the plot to unravel - or, as he put it, "to ripen."

Another possibility is that Monteagle wrote the letter to himself.  Or was the author one of the plotters’ wives? Or did Tresham write it after all?

King James was passionately pro-hunting, vehemently anti-smoking and probably homosexual.

He had been born on 19 Jan 1566 at Edinburgh Castle. His father, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley had been killed in a gunpowder explosion when James was just 8 months old. He became King of Scotland on 24 July 1567 - at the age of 13 months- when his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, abdicated. She left Scotland on 16 May 1568 and he never saw her again. He was 20 when Queen Elizabeth I signed the warrant for his mother’s beheading.

In the last years of Elizabeth’s reign Robert Cecil had initiated a secret correspondence with the Scottish King to ensure a smooth succession.

Shortly after he united the crowns of Scotland and England in 1603 (he styled himself “King of Great Britain”) he is known to have ceased marital relations with his wife.

In 1604 he published ‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco’ which concluded that smoking was “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”

He was now busy hunting near Royston in Cambridgeshire and would not be back until Thursday 31 October.

In the meantime, Cecil informed other members of the Council of the warning contained in the letter. They agreed to discuss the matter again on Saturday 2 November.

On the afternoon of Friday 1 November Robert Cecil handed the Monteagle letter to the King.

The King read the document, paused and then read it again. Cecil suggested that it must have been written by a fool. James was not so sure. He thought it might have something to do with powder.

The council met on Saturday 2 November. They decided to undertake a search of the Palace of Westminster on the Monday. Lord Monteagle would accompany the Earl of Suffolk.

The plotters, in the meantime, carried on with their final preparations.
They had organised a hunting party for the following Tuesday at Dunsmore Heath near Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon. Princess Elizabeth was expected to attend. She would be kidnapped and taken to Coughton Court, a few miles to the west, which had belonged to the Throckmortons - a prominent recusant family - since the early fifteenth century. The current head of the family, Thomas Thockmorton, was uncle to Catesby and Tresham. Catherine Throckmorton, his aunt, was grandmother to the Winters. Throckmorton was currently living abroad and the plotters had installed one of their number as tenant.

The house had been extended in better days as a stately pile with commanding views over surrounding countryside. It also contained secret compartments in the north-eastern turret, an excellent place for hiding a catholic priest - or a princess.

On Monday 4 November Thomas Percy was at Sion House, which belonged to his employer, the catholic Lord Northampton (and member of the Privy Council) to see if he could pick up on anything. He then went to Essex House in the Strand - also owned by Northampton - before going back to his own lodgings.

There appeared to be no news to report and so Robert Catesby, Jack Wright and his servant Thomas Bates left London for the Midlands. Catesby was confident of his plans. He was on his way to create an uprising.

But all was not well. During their search of the Palace of Westminster the Earl of Suffolk and Lord Monteagle did not only talk to ‘John Johnson’ and spot his large supply of wood and coal, they also discovered from the owner of the property that the cellar was leased to Thomas Percy.

The name appeared to ring a very loud bell with Monteagle. Of course! It must have been Percy who wrote the letter. Did this mean that Lord Northampton was behind the plot?

When he heard what had happened the King insisted that a further search should be made.

And so in the early hours of the Fifth of November Guy Fawkes was captured and a warrant was issued for the arrest of Thomas Percy.

A search party was despatched to Essex house where it was thought Percy was staying.

Christopher Wright was in the Strand that night. Many of the Lords lived there and he was on alert.  He overheard Lord Worcester, a member of the council, summoning Lord Monteagle to call up Lord Northampton. The council was required to assemble at this time of crisis.

Wright rushed over to the Duck and Drake to inform Tom Winter the matter is discovered.’ Winter told Wright to hurry over to Percy’s lodging and ‘bid him begone’.

Winter stayed in London while the other plotters fled. He went down to Westminster to find out what he could for himself. He was stopped by a guard in King Street where he overheard someone say that treason had been discovered in which the King and Lords were to have been blown up.

It was time for Winter too to take to his horse.

The ‘gentler tortures’ that were used on Guy Fawkes were hand presses and manacles. The manacles were easy to operate and very effective. The prisoner would be hung by his wrists against a wall and the iron gauntlets gradually tightened. The wooden supports for his feet would be removed and he would be left dangling for hours.

The worst torture, of course, was the rack, a large oak frame with levers and cords with which to slowly stretch the suspect, while he was urged to confess. Sometimes just the sight of it was enough.

Guido Fawkes was said to have been frequently racked in the first few days. But eventually he broke. He probably started talking late on 7 November. He hoped he had given his comrades enough of a head start.

The fleeing conspirators left the capital in a state of crisis.  The Council ordered the usual precautions: the Lord Mayors of the City of London and of Westminster were ordered to set a watch upon their gates; the ports were closed (they would not reopen until 16 November).

As soon as the news spread through London there was confusion and indignation at this bold attempt but it was mixed with some rejoicing at the King’s salvation. The crowd demanded their traditional method of
celebration: bonfires.

The Council ordered that there could be bonfires so long as they were ‘without any danger or disorder.’ So the very first bonfires to commemorate the Gunpowder Plot were on lit of 5 November 1605.

On the assumption that those devilish Spaniards were behind it all a larger crowd gathered at the Spanish Ambassador’s house and the Council had to issue an emergency order that the Ambassador ‘must not be touched with this horrible practice of treason.’  Many foreign ambassadors felt it appropriate to light bonfires of their own and to throw money into the crowd, a practice which seems to have sadly petered out.

Parliament briefly assembled on the afternoon of 5 November 1605. A note written in the margin of the official record states:

This last night the Upper House of Parliament was searched by Sir Thomas Knevett; and one Johnson, servant to Mr Thomas Percy was there apprehended; who had placed 36 barrels of Gunpowder in the Vault under the house with a Purpose to blow the King, and the whole company, when they should there assemble.

Robert Catesby was told the news by a minor conspirator, Ambrose Rookwood. Robert Winter tried to persuade him that their best plan of action was to throw themselves at the mercy of the King but even now Catesby insisted that all was not lost. They would raise a rebellion and Catholics all over the country would support their cause.

At about midnight they raided Warwick Castle.

12 Missing

On 7 November the Council named more of the wanted men in addition to Percy.
They were Catesby, Thomas Winter, the Wright brothers, Grant, Rookwood and a Robert Ashfield, servant to Catesby (they probably meant Bates). Lord Northampton, Percy’s patron (and distant cousin, incidentally) was placed under house arrest at Lambeth Palace.

On this same day the 36 barrels of gunpowder was also removed from Parliament and taken to the ordinance and munitions store at the Tower of London, not far from where Fawkes was being gently tortured. In the Debenture Book of the Royal Ordinance the eighteen hundredweight of gunpowder was described as having been placed in Parliament ‘for the destruction of the King’s Majesty, the nobility and the commonality there assembled.’

It was also found to have decayed.

The gunpowder - a mixture of approximately 75% saltpetre (potassium nitrate), around 14% charcoal and about 11% sulphur - may have separated. In late summer, whilst it was in the vault under the House of Lords, Guy Fawkes and Tom Winter had already discovered and replaced some powder thought to be useless.

But would Robert Cecil, had he really known of the plot, have allowed such a quantity of explosive to remain in place? There is some suggestion that he had arranged a search of his own and had established that the powder was no real threat to anybody.

Back at Holbeach House the small party of plotters knew they would soon be surrounded. Their attention turned to the defences of the house. They had plenty of munitions but what they really needed was manpower.

They decided to contact the wealthy John Talbot, Getrude Winter’s father, who lived at Pepperhill about 10 miles away. Robert Winter refused to go, saying that his father-in-law would be more concerned with looking after Gertude who would soon become a single mother. So long before dawn Thomas Winter (who had volunteered to go) set off with Stephen Littleton.

While Winter and Littleton were away the remaining party prepared themselves. They stupidly - perhaps desperately - placed some wet gunpowder in front of the fire when the inevitable happened.

Robert Catesby got his explosion at last.

Tom Winter and Stephen Littleton were told of the explosion by a messenger on their way back from Pepperhill.

Talbot had been deeply displeased to see them and wanted them off his land.
He realised that the repercussions on Catholics would be bad enough but any further association with the plotters would potentially lead to the Tower.

They were told that Catesby, Rookwood and John Grant were all dead and that the rest of the party had dispersed. Littleton decided to escape urging Winter to do likewise.  But Winter resolved to return to Holbech House to bury Catesby first.

In fact the explosion had engulfed Catesby, Rookwood and Grant in flames but they were all still alive. Grant had been blinded, Catesby and Rookwood badly burned.

Robert Winter had escaped as had Bates and John Winter (their half-brother).

Only the Wright brothers and Percy remained. As Tom Winter set about tending to the wounded he asked their intentions.

“We mean here to die.” came the reply.

Sir Richard Walsh and 200 men were indeed getting close.

By 11 O’clock Walsh and his company had surrounded the house.

Tom Winter was the first to be shot, in the shoulder, as he crossed the courtyard. As a result he was unable to use his arm.

Jack Wright was next - shot and killed. Christopher was killed shortly afterwards, neither brother able to demonstrate the swordsmanship for which they were renowned.  Ambrose Rookward was shot next, he fell injured but was not killed.

“Stand by me Tom,” said Catesby, “and we will die together.”

Catebsy, Percy and Winter now stood closely together at the door of the house.

Thomas Percy and Robert Catesby were killed by the same shot, fired by a John Streete of Worcester. He later petitioned for a reward of £1000.

Tom Winter was unlucky enough to survive.  He, Rookwood and  John Grant would be taken to the Tower to die a traitor’s death.

On 9 November the King of Great Britain spoke to Parliament. He started by condemning the indiscriminate nature of the attempt to destroy young and old, great and small, men and women. Today’s political leaders of all persuasions continue to condemn terrorist actions in much the same way - perhaps also describing them as cowardly.

The King declared that there were few grounds, if any, to justify the conspiracy - only religion, and that was scarcely enough. He  reminded the assembled company of his own brilliant role in interpreting the Monteagle letter and  went on to flatter them saying that had it succeeded, at least he would have died “in the most Honourable and best company”, rather than in an ale-house or a brothel. He made it plain that the Catholic foreign powers were not suspected of complicity. “We cannot admit so inhumane a thought as to their involvement.”

Of the 13 main conspirators, Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy and the two Wrights were all dead. Fawkes had been joined in the Tower by Tom Winter, Ambrose Rookwood, John Grant. Thomas Bates and two other plotters who had also escaped from Holbeach House were quickly rounded up and incarcerated.
They are relatively minor characters in the drama: Robert Keys had been installed at Catesby’s House in Lambeth and Sir Everard Digby the tennant they had placed in Coughton Court.

Francis Tresham was named by Guido Fawkes now he had started talking. He was arrested on 12 November and taken to the Tower three days later.

Robert Winter was still on the run.

Later in November the government put out a description of Robert Winter:
‘of meane stature, rather low than otherwise, somewhat stooping, near forty years of age, his hair and beard browne, his beard not much, and his hair short.’

He and Stephen Littleton remained on the run until they were finally arrested around the 9th of January 1606. They had been moving about from one farmhouse barn to another all winter and for the last week or so had been hiding at the Worcestershire home of one of Littleton’s cousins, Humphrey Littleton. The cook, John Finwood, became suspicious at the amout of food being sent up and called in the authorities. Finwood was to be rewarded with an annual pension.

By this time Francis Tresham was dead. He suffered from strangury, an agonisingly painful and acute inflammation of the urinary tract. He died slowly and in great pain.
His wife was allowed to stay with him the last couple of days while a secretary wrote his confession. He made no mention of the Monteagle letter.

The remaining conspirators were tried and found guilty.

On 29 January 1606 Thomas Bates, Robert Winter, John Grant and Sir Everard Digby were tied to hurdles and dragged lying on their backs to the scaffold at St Paul’s Churchyard.

Digby made a last speech, as was the custom. He asked for forgiveness and said that if he had known it was to be so foul a treason he would not have concealed it. He asked the crowd to witness that he died penitent and remorseful. As a Catholic he rejected the attempts of a protestant clergyman to attend him. He then said his goodbyes to his friends amongst the assembled nobles - as they said afterwards, in such a cheerful and friendly manner as if he were leaving the court or the city to travel to his own house in the country. He then mounted the ladder to hang only for a short time before being cut down by the executioner. He was fully conscious when he was hauled to the quartering block to be castrated, disembowelled and quartered.

Robert Winter was next, talking little and praying to himself as he climbed the ladder. His brother-in-law was the third to die. He had been blinded by the explosion at Holbeach House and had to be helped up the ladder to the rope. Bates spoke of his loyalty and affection for his master saying this caused him to forget his duty to God, King and Country. He appeared to be genuinely repentant for his part in the conspiracy and asked forgiveness of God, the King and of then whole kingdom.

The remaining four were executed the next day. At Old Palace Yard, Westminster, the very place they had tried to destroy.

The journey from the Tower to Old Palace Yard is longer and the crowd of onlookers was vast. To get a better view some people had even climbed onto the roof of Westminster Abbey.

Elizabeth Rookwood, Ambrose’s wife, was waiting in the window of a lodging-house in the Strand. As Rookwood was being dragged past he tried to raise himself up calling out to her to pray for him. “I will, I will.” She shouted back. “And be of good courage.”

Thomas Winter was the first to mount the scaffold. The crowd wanted a speech but Winter, practical to the end, replied that this was no time for discourse, he had come to die. But the executioner cut him down after only a couple of seconds.

Ambrose Rookwood was next. He spoke to confirm his guilt and asked God to bless the King, Queen and Royal Family. The executioner evidently liked what he heard for he only cut Rookwood down when he was almost at his last gasp.

Robert Keys showed great courage and determination. He went straight up the ladder and with the rope around his next threw himself off without waiting for the executioner to decide for him. Unluckily for Keys, the rope broke and he was taken alive to the quartering block.

Guido Fawkes was the last of the Gunpowder Plotters to die. He was a physical wreck as a result of the tortures he had suffered and was only able to ask for forgiveness of the King and of the state. He had to be helped up the scaffold by the hangman. He did, however, mount high enough to ensure that his neck was broken with the fall so he, at least, was not conscious on the quartering block.

As Robert Cecil pointed out, all eight men died Catholics. Nothing had persuaded them to abandon their religion.

But what of the Monteagle letter?

It has never been fully established who wrote the Monteagle Letter. But to examine this further it is best to see who most benefited from it (Cicero’s famous ‘Cui Bono’).

Tresham convinced Catesby and Winter it was not written by him. He did not mention it on his deathbed confession. He certainly did not benefit from it.

Percy’s wife was owed money by Lord Monteagle - but Monteagle was at least paying £50 per annum interest on it and with Monteagle dead that would stop.
Surely if Percy had written the letter he would have warned his own patron.

The discovery of the letter helped Monteagle above all others. Now he would not be suspected of villainy, even by association. After all, he had been involved in the Essex uprising with many of them and employed Tom Winter. 
Lord Monteagle afterwards received a reward of lands worth £200 per annum and a further income of £500.

Robert Cecil came out of it pretty well too. Some historians have even suggested the he devised the whole thing to demonstrate his service to the new king. He used Catesby and then had him killed to stop him from talking.

Robert Catesby and his men failed completely. They achieved nothing to advance the Catholic cause. In fact quite the opposite happened and there were immediate repercussions.

Many of the known Catholics were rounded up, incarcerated or fined even more heavily. The hapless Lord Northampton, imprisoned for his association with Percy, was only released in 1623.

Catholics could no longer practice law, become officers in the Navy or Army, act as executor of a will, become a guardian, receive a University degree or even (until 1797) vote in local elections or in Parliamentary elections until 1829.  The gunpowder plot effectively led to 200 years of Catholic repression.

Had they succeeded in blowing King and Parliament to bits it is quite possible that the country might have turned Catholic again, that Protestant repression might have been just as bad but that after two hundred years, Napoleon might have been welcomed with open arms.

Written by David Gilmour 2005

Sources:
Gunpowder Plot Society
Encyclopedia Britannica
The Gunpowder Plot by Alan Haynes
The Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Fraser

Fawkes in the vault

Guy Fawkes Signature

James I

Remember, Remember

Map of London

Guy Fawkes arrest

Guy Fawkes torture

Bonfire

Houses of Parliament

17th Century map

James I

Guy Fawkes execution