Guy Fawkes: the Name Behind the Date

What do they celebrate in England by setting off fireworks on November 5?

Compiled by Oleksandr PETLIN, October – November 2009

Guy Fawkes was born on or about April 13, 1570 in Stonegate, Yorkshire. Originally he was raised as a Protestant, but later became a Catholic.

It is believed that Fawkes left England in either 1593 or 1594 and was enlisted in the Spanish Army under the Archduke Albert of Austria... Fawkes is known to have held a post of command when

the Spanish took Calais in 1596 under the orders of King Philip II. He was reported to be very well-educated, courageous and very popular among soldiers.

Physically, Fawkes was quite handsome, being a tall and powerfully-built man with thick reddish-brown hair, a flowing moustache, bushy auburn beard and grey-blue eyes. Joining the Catholic Church he changed his name to "Guido" instead of "Guy."

After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics who had been persecuted under her rule had hoped that her successor, James I, would be more tolerant of their religion. James I had, after all, had a Catholic mother. Unfortunately, James did not turn out to be more tolerant than Elizabeth and a number of young men, 13 to be exact, decided that violent action was the answer.

A small group took shape, under the leadership of Robert Catesby. Catesby felt that violent action was warranted. Indeed, the thing to do was to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, they would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics.

Fawkes probably joined the Gunpowder Conspiracy in May 1604. Around March of 1605, the conspirators hired a cellar beneath Parliament, just under the House of Lords. Fawkes assisted in filling the room with 36 barrels of gunpowder hidden beneath iron bars and faggots (bundles of sticks and branches bound together). But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack, including some people who even fought for more rights for Catholics. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. This letter revealed the plotters’ plans.

Fawkes was unaware of the letter's existence. The following Sunday (November 3), all but Fawkes made plans for a speedy exit from London. Agreeing to remain and watch the cellar by himself, Fawkes had already been given the task of firing the powder. His orders were to go to Flanders as soon as the powder had been fired and to spread news of the explosion throughout the Continent. The following Monday afternoon, the buildings of Parliament were searched. In the cellar, they discovered an unusually large pile of faggots and noted the presence of Fawkes. The powder has been unearthed and Fawkes was promptly arrested.

On Monday, January 27, 1606, the trial of the eight surviving conspirators commenced in Westminster Hall. The proceedings were little more than a legal formality since a guilty verdict had almost certainly already been handed down.

On Friday, January 31, 1606, Guy Fawkes, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwod and Robert Keyes were taken to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster and hung, drawn and quartered "in the very place which they had planned to demolish in order to hammer home the message of their wickedness." The last of the four to suffer his appointed fate was Fawkes...

According to "A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot" written by David Jardine in 1857, Fawkes should not be regarded as a "mercenary ruffian, ready for hire to do any deed of blood; but as a zealot, misled by misguided fanaticism, who was, however, by no means destitute of piety or humanity."

And on the 5 November every year in the United Kingdom people celebrate the Guy Fawkes’ Night or Bonfire Night. On that day people in Great Britain set off fireworks and make fires on which they burn the dummies of Guy Fawkes. Before the day kids ask the adults for «a penny for an excellent fellow Guy», to buy fireworks.

V for Vendetta is a ten-issue comic-book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, set in a dystopian future United Kingdom imagined from the 1980s about the 1990s. A mysterious anarchist revolutionary who calls himself "V", and is dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask works to destroy the totalitarian government, profoundly affecting the people he encounters. Warner Bros. released a film adaptation in 2005. Due to the comics and the film, Guy Fawkes can be considered nowadays as a symbol of a freedom fighter, ready to sacrifice his life to correct wrongs.