Gunpowder Plot

1605

Was this an attempted '911' from the Stuart times?

Were the plotters terrorists? Were they set up by the forces of the State?

Click to enlarge an article

from The Guardian (2003)

showing how much of

London would have been

blown up.

Click to enlarge this engraving of the plotters

Click to enlarge this painting of Robert Cecil

Remember remember the Fifth of November - Gunpowder

Treason and Plot

The gruesome execution of Guy Fawkes is celebrated 

every year in Britain. He wasn't actually burned at the

stake  - the punishment for heresy (a crime against

religion), he was given a traitor's death - hanging, drawing

and quartering.

James Stuart had been King of England for two years. He

was a foreigner and came across as rude and ill-mannered

to the English. He was also following the hugely popular Queen Elizabeth, in a time of continued religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics.

James tried to please all sides. He stopped the heavy fines which Catholics had to pay for not going to Protestant church. However this was unpopular and he quickly began them again.

A group of Roman Catholics decided to assassinate James and replace him with his daughter Elizabeth who they would convert to Catholicism. The group was led by Robert Catesby, and a soldier called Guy Fawkes was put in charge of the explosives.

Timeline

Early-Modern

How have these changed? Crime, Protest, Punishment and Policing.

What happened in?

Early-Modern

c.1500-1750

Kett's Rebellion, Pilgrimage of Grace, Gunpowder Plot, Vagabonds, Poaching, Smuggling, Highwaymen, Witchcraft, Corporal Punishment, Bloody Code........more

Industrial Britain

1750-1900

Theft and robbery, Poverty, Police, Transportation, Prisons, Luddites, Swing Riots, Chartism, Prison Reformers, Dock Strike........more

Twentieth Century

1900-2000

Suffrage Movement, Conscientious Objectors, General Strike, Hanging, Youth Detention, Fingerprinting, DNA, Surveillance, Drug Crime, Hooliganism, Community Service, Race Crime.........more

Who were?

Robert Aske, Matthew Hopkins, Jonathan Wild, Dick Turpin, John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, Derek Bentley........more

The Official Story

Robert Cecil was the king's chief minister. He was in charge of the security of the state, and had spies everywhere. When Fawkes was captured he was tortured on the rack and confessed to the plot.

Cecil said that the plotters had planned to blow up the king at the state opening of Parliament. They tried to tunnel underneath the building, but then rented a cellar directly below the House of Lords. 36 barrels of gunpowder were put in place and primed to explode.

A letter arrived, according to Cecil, at the home of Lord Mounteagle, the brother-in-law of Francis Tresham, one of the plotters, warning him of a 'terrible blow' that will happen. Mounteagle rushed with the letter to Cecil. The cellars were searched and Fawkes, under the false name John Johnson, was found and arrested. The remaining plotters were found, four were shot and the rest brought to London for trial.

Cecil's story does raise questions:

• No-one saw the tunnel being dug, nor was the tunnel ever found!
• Who would rent a cellar underneath Parliament to a group of Catholics? A friend of Cecil - who died on 5 November!
• Gunpowder was strictly controlled by the State - how was so much able to fall into the plotters' hands so easily?
• There are doubts as to the authenticity of the Mounteagle letter. It was supposed to have been written by Francis Tresham.
• Tresham was not arrested and tried, but died in the Tower, mysteriously.