The Real Guy Fawkes

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Little is known about the earliest celebrations. In settlements such as Carlisle, Norwich, and Nottingham, corporations (town governments) provided music and artillery salutes. Canterbury celebrated 5November 1607 with 106 pounds (48kg) of gunpowder and 14 pounds (6.4kg) of match, and three years later food and drink was provided for local dignitaries, as well as music, explosions, and a parade by the local militia. Even less is known of how the occasion was first commemorated by the general public, although records indicate that in the Protestant stronghold of Dorchester a sermon was read, the church bells rung, and bonfires and fireworks lit. [6] Early significance The striking issue with “Faith and Treason” is the constant references to plays, dramas, and Shakespeare. This is irrelevant and really has no place in an academic, scholarly writing. Playwrights were not historians and shouldn’t be references or alluded to (yet historians continue to do use them as such). This really is a story of our times played out long enough ago for most of us to be able to see past the petty loyalties of religious nutters to the equally horrifying games played in the name of politics – well, by ‘most of us’ I obviously don’t include the crazies of Northern Ireland, say, who are still fighting the same wars. (Oh, did I say crazies, I meant family and fellow countrymen, but then, that is much the same thing) This is a story of our times because it shows how easy it is to manipulate people on the basis of fear of an out-group and how those in power love to play precisely these games so as to enhance their power. Unlike September 11, however, the only people hurt by the Gunpowder Plot were Catholics, whereas with September 11 merely most people hurt by it have proven to be Muslim. Settlers exported Guy Fawkes Night to overseas colonies, including some in North America, where it was known as Pope Day. Those festivities died out with the onset of the American Revolution. Claims that Guy Fawkes Night was a Protestant replacement for older customs such as Samhain are disputed.

The unsigned letter got straight to the point: “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 though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow.”

Pity for the Guy: A Biography of Guy Fawkes – John Paul Davis

Call, Lewis (July 2008), "A is for Anarchy, V is for Vendetta: Images of Guy Fawkes and the Creation of Postmodern Anarchism", Anarchist Studies, 16 (2): 154

What unity English Protestants had shared in the plot's immediate aftermath began to fade when in 1625 James's son, the future Charles I, married the Catholic Henrietta Maria of France. Puritans reacted to the marriage by issuing a new prayer to warn against rebellion and Catholicism, and on 5November that year, effigies of the pope and the devil were burnt, the earliest such report of this practice and the beginning of centuries of tradition. [a] [14] During Charles's reign Gunpowder Treason Day became increasingly partisan. Between 1629 and 1640 he ruled without Parliament, and he seemed to support Arminianism, regarded by Puritans such as Henry Burton as a step toward Catholicism. By 1636, under the leadership of the Arminian Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud, the English church was trying to use 5November to denounce all seditious practices, and not just popery. [15] Puritans went on the defensive, some pressing for further reformation of the Church. [10] Revellers in Lewes in East Sussex, 5November 2010 Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators wanted to destroy the Houses of Parliament in protest at how Roman Catholics were treated in England at the time, as they wanted to make way for a new government that would restore Catholic rule to England. King James I was a Protestant and the successor to Queen Elizabeth I, both of whom had strong anti-Catholic policies. Underdown, David (1987), Revel, riot, and rebellion: popular politics and culture in England 1603–1660 (reprinted, illustrateded.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-285193-4 Fawkes, Guy" in The Dictionary of National Biography, Leslie Stephen, ed., Oxford University Press, London (1921–1922). Although the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography claims 1592, multiple alternative sources give 1591 as the date. Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology, 1450 to 2000, includes a signed indenture of the sale of the estate dated 14 October 1591. (pp. 198–199)Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 in Stonegate, York. He was the second of four children born to Edward Fawkes, a proctor and an advocate of the consistory court at York, [b] and his wife, Edith. [c] Guy's parents were regular communicants of the Church of England, as were his paternal grandparents; his grandmother, born Ellen Harrington, was the daughter of a prominent merchant, who served as Lord Mayor of York in 1536. [4] Guy's mother's family were recusant Catholics, and his cousin, Richard Cowling, became a Jesuit priest. [5] Guy was an uncommon name in England, but may have been popular in York on account of a local notable, Sir Guy Fairfax of Steeton. [6] Albee, John (October–December 1892), "Pope Night in Portsmouth, N. H.", The Journal of American Folklore, American Folklore Society, 5 (19): 335–336, doi: 10.2307/533252, JSTOR 533252 The date of Fawkes's birth is unknown, but he was baptised in the church of St Michael le Belfrey, York on 16 April. As the customary gap between birth and baptism was three days, he was probably born about 13 April. [5] In 1568, Edith had given birth to a daughter named Anne, but the child died aged about seven weeks, in November that year. She bore two more children after Guy: Anne (b.1572), and Elizabeth (b.1575). Both were married, in 1599 and 1594 respectively. [6] [7]