The cellar that Fawkes tried to blow up no longer exists. The idea is to ensure no modern-day Guy Fawkes is hiding in the cellars with a bomb, although it is more ceremonial than serious. The Houses of Parliament are still searched today by the Yeomen of the Guard before the state opening. Lord Monteagle was rewarded with £500 plus £200 worth of lands for his service in protecting the crown. The letter (which could well have been sent by Lord Monteagle's brother-in-law Francis Tresham), was made public and this led to a search of Westminster Palace in the early hours of November 5.Įxplosive expert Fawkes, who had been left in the cellars to set off the fuse, was caught when a group of guards discovered him at the last moment.įawkes was arrested, sent to the Tower of London and tortured until he gave up the names of his fellow plotters.

The scheme began to unravel when an anonymous letter was sent to William Parker, the 4th Baron Monteagle, warning him to avoid the House of Lords.

Physicists from the Institute of Physics later calculated that the 2,500kg of gunpowder beneath Parliament would have obliterated an area 500 metres from the centre of the explosion. Guy (Guido) Fawkes, from York, and his fellow conspirators, having rented out a house close to the Houses of Parliament, managed to smuggle 36 barrels of gunpowder into a cellar of the House of Lords - enough to completely destroy the building. When this didn't transpire, a group of conspirators resolved to assassinate the King and his ministers by blowing up the Palace of Westminster during the state opening of Parliament.

When Protestant King James I acceded to the throne, English Catholics had hoped that the persecution they had felt for over 45 years under Queen Elizabeth I would finally end, and they would be granted the freedom to practice their religion. November 5 commemorates the failure of the November 1605 Gunpowder Plot by a gang of Roman Catholic activists led by Warwickshire-born Robert Catesby. The jovial atmosphere is a far cry from the origins of November 5, which are shrouded in religious tension and a foiled assassination attempt - but the date now marks when Britons commemorate events that nearly changed the course of the nation's history.īut what actually happened that night, and what part did Guy Fawkes play? What was the Gunpowder Plot? It's that time of year again - when we Britons watch dummies burn on bonfires and fireworks light up the sky, wrapped up in woolly hats and gloves.

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