The Gunpowder Plot

In England in 1605, your religion could decide your whole life. The country was officially Protestant, and Catholics — who still followed the older form of Christianity, led from Rome — lived under harsh laws. They were fined for not attending Protestant church, watched, and at times imprisoned. When the old queen, Elizabeth I, died and James I came to the throne in 1603, England's Catholics dared to hope. James had a Catholic mother, and he had hinted that life might become easier for them.

It did not. Far from easing the laws, James spoke of how he "detested" the Catholic faith, and ordered Catholic priests out of the country. For a small group of angry young Catholic gentlemen, that broken promise was the final straw. They decided that the king, his ministers and his Parliament would never give them freedom — and so the king, his ministers and his Parliament would have to be destroyed, all at once.

The man behind the plan was Robert Catesby, a tall, charming, persuasive figure from a Catholic family that had suffered for its faith. Around him he gathered a small circle of trusted men, including Thomas Wintour and Thomas Percy. They needed one more thing: someone who understood explosives. They found him in a battle-hardened soldier who had spent ten years fighting for Catholic Spain in the Netherlands — a cool, careful man named Guy Fawkes.

The plan was breathtaking in its boldness. On 5 November 1605, the King would open Parliament in person. James, his eldest son, the leading nobles, the bishops and the members of both Houses would all be gathered in one place: the House of Lords. If the plotters could destroy that building at that exact moment, they would wipe out the entire government of England in a single blast.

They rented a property beside Parliament and, crucially, gained the use of an undercroft — a large cellar directly beneath the House of Lords. Through 1605 they quietly moved in barrels of gunpowder, hiding them under piles of firewood and coal: thirty-six barrels in all, far more than enough to bring the great chamber down. Guy Fawkes, using the false name "John Johnson," posed as a servant looking after the property, and took charge of guarding the powder. The plan was simple and terrible. As soon as Parliament opened and the chamber was full, Fawkes would light a slow fuse, slip out, and let the gunpowder do the rest.

But a conspiracy of this size could not stay perfectly secret. Some plotters worried about the Catholic lords who would die alongside the king. Then, late in October, an anonymous letter reached one of them — Lord Monteagle — warning him to stay away from Parliament, because it would "receive a terrible blow" and yet not see who struck it. Monteagle, alarmed, took the letter straight to the King's ministers. The hunt was on.

Acting on the warning, the King's men searched the buildings around Parliament. Just after midnight, in the early hours of 5 November 1605, they went down into the undercroft and found a tall man in a cloak and boots standing among a great pile of firewood. He gave his name as John Johnson. When they cleared away the wood, they found the thirty-six barrels of gunpowder — and, on the man himself, matches and the means to light a fuse. He was arrested on the spot. The plot had been foiled with only hours to spare.

"John Johnson" gave little away at first, even admiring the King's questioners for their persistence. But James ordered that he be tortured, and over the following days, stretched on the rack, he was broken. He confessed, and gave up the names of the others. By then the rest of the plotters had fled into the Midlands, hoping to raise a Catholic revolt. None came. Catesby and several others were cornered and shot dead resisting arrest; the survivors were dragged back to London. In January 1606 the captured men, Guy Fawkes among them, were condemned for treason and executed in the most brutal way the law allowed. Fawkes, weak from torture, climbed the scaffold last — and at the final moment fell or jumped so that his neck broke, sparing himself the worst of it.

The plot failed completely, and the laws against Catholics grew harsher, not gentler. Yet the night never disappeared. To celebrate the King's survival, people lit bonfires across London — and they have lit them every year since. Four centuries later, on the evening of 5 November, Britain still fills with bonfires and fireworks, and children still burn a "Guy" on the flames. A handful of men set out to be remembered as liberators. Instead, they gave their country a festival of fire — and the most famous failed plot in English history.