Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Since it is November five, also known as
Speaker 1: Guy Fox Day or Guy Fox Night, we are replaying
Speaker 1: prior hosts Sarah and Deblina's episode on the Gunpowder Plot
Speaker 1: as today's Saturday classic. This originally came out as two
Speaker 1: parts that were separated by an entire week that was
Speaker 1: on November two and n Each of those parts is
Speaker 1: shorter than today's episodes typically are, so we are running
Speaker 1: both of them together today, so enjoy. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Deblina Chocolate Boardy and
Speaker 1: I'm Sara Dout And the topic we're about to discuss
Speaker 1: isn't exactly obscure, and at least some of our listeners,
Speaker 1: the British contingent that is, probably won't be able to
Speaker 1: say that they missed in history class. It has to
Speaker 1: do with a certain celebration that's coming up in England
Speaker 1: on November five. Some call it Bonfire Day, others call
Speaker 1: it Fireworks Night, and still others know it as Guy
Speaker 1: Fox Day, referring to the man whose name is most
Speaker 1: associated with the notorious Gunpowder Plot. Athwarted attempt to blow
Speaker 1: up Parliament on November five. It's also called the Powder Treason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and people celebrate or commemorate this day in different ways,
Speaker 1: and it's changed a lot over the years, but the
Speaker 1: alternate names for the event really give you a good
Speaker 1: general idea of what goes on. People set off fireworks
Speaker 1: and they light up their bonfires, and often a top
Speaker 1: of those bonfires, they'll burn Guy Fox in effigy, so
Speaker 1: that might throw some of you guys for a loop.
Speaker 1: Children will often sell those effigies eventually they call them guys.
Speaker 1: They'll go out and they'll sell them on the street
Speaker 1: and they'll ask for a penny for the guy. And
Speaker 1: those same kids are probably also pretty familiar with a
Speaker 1: famous rhyme. Do you want to read it off for Scenarstaplina? Sure,
Speaker 1: it's remember remember the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot.
Speaker 1: I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be
Speaker 1: forgot and thanks at least in part to pop culture references.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk a little bit more about that later.
Speaker 1: But many people outside of the UK have heard this
Speaker 1: rhyme too, and perhaps they even know the name Guy Fox.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've ever seen the two thousand six
Speaker 1: movie V for Vendetta, for example, this will surely ring
Speaker 1: a bell, or if you just work in the house
Speaker 1: Stuff Works office. One of our coworkers, Jonathan Strickland of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, is definitely a fan of of rattling off
Speaker 1: this rhyme from time to time. It's always fun to hear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he and I were actually talking about that in
Speaker 1: reference to the fact that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: misconceptions out there about who exactly Guy Fox was and
Speaker 1: what November five is commemorating. Some simply think that Fox
Speaker 1: was the hero of the day, and they might be
Speaker 1: surprised to learn what we just told you that he's
Speaker 1: burned in effigy, or they at least think that he
Speaker 1: was the master mind of the Gunpowder plot, which wasn't
Speaker 1: the case at all. He's actually kind of a minor character,
Speaker 1: not a master criminal at all. Really, right, So we're
Speaker 1: going to take a closer look at the Gunpowder plot,
Speaker 1: the motives behind it, and the players involved, including who
Speaker 1: really instigated the whole thing. And we're also going to
Speaker 1: discuss some conflicting theories over the origins of the plot,
Speaker 1: but we're going to get to that later. First, we're
Speaker 1: gonna give you the generally accepted version of events, and
Speaker 1: to do that we need to kind of set the
Speaker 1: scene a bit. So there's an overarching conflict at the
Speaker 1: time which ends up leading to the events will discuss,
Speaker 1: and the conflict is between English Catholics and English Protestants.
Speaker 1: And by the time the gunpowder plot was devised, Catholics
Speaker 1: in England had had pretty rough go of it for
Speaker 1: many years, being persecuted. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First, who was a Protestant, they'd been subject to
Speaker 1: religious legislation that required them to attend to parish church
Speaker 1: every Sunday. And it wasn't just that they had to
Speaker 1: go to church every Sunday. If you didn't go, it
Speaker 1: was known as recusancy. And according to an article by
Speaker 1: i'm in Adams in History Today, the penalty for recusancy
Speaker 1: was originally a one shilling fine, but that ended up
Speaker 1: going up to twenty pounds a month by fight one,
Speaker 1: which I mean that still sounds like a lot of
Speaker 1: money today. Twenty pounds that's pretty stee forty dollars or
Speaker 1: so about that. So Elizabeth had been excommunicated by the
Speaker 1: pope and she saw Recusans as potential traders, thus the
Speaker 1: really high fine and the strict rules about what Catholics
Speaker 1: had to do right. And there were other parts to
Speaker 1: these penal laws as they were called um one that
Speaker 1: declared that it was treason basically to convert a subject
Speaker 1: to Catholicism, and also treason for a Jesuit or a
Speaker 1: priest to enter the country. People who broke these laws
Speaker 1: were executed. But towards the end of the fifteen nineties
Speaker 1: Catholics started to have a little bit of hope. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: was getting older and she was childless and didn't have
Speaker 1: an air so there was the thinking, hey, maybe the
Speaker 1: next monarch would be a little bit more tolerant of Catholics.
Speaker 1: And when James the sixth of Scotland took the throne
Speaker 1: in six o three after Elizabeth died, making him King
Speaker 1: James the First of England, he kind of seemed to
Speaker 1: be that guy. His wife, for example, Anne of Denmark,
Speaker 1: she was Catholic, and with Anne's help, James had sort
Speaker 1: of campaigned for support from other Catholic powers in Europe
Speaker 1: and from the Pope also before Elizabeth's death, to kind
Speaker 1: of prepare himself to not have opposition when he took
Speaker 1: the throne in England, so those things kind of gave
Speaker 1: Catholics a little bit of hope. They're like, okay, he
Speaker 1: seems friendly towards Catholics. And also, according to an article
Speaker 1: in History Review by Pauline Croft, James was pretty open
Speaker 1: minded at least seemed that way at first. He said
Speaker 1: to have commented that he didn't really want there to
Speaker 1: be more Catholics in England, so he didn't want there
Speaker 1: to be more converts or for more people to come in.
Speaker 1: But if they kept their Catholic nous kind of on
Speaker 1: the down low and followed the law, he wouldn't bother them,
Speaker 1: or at least there wouldn't be major violence, like a
Speaker 1: live in, let live philosophy. Almost so Catholics caught wind
Speaker 1: of this, and some people thought, well, maybe it means
Speaker 1: the end of the recusancy laws period, and some Catholics
Speaker 1: even went as far as to petition James before his
Speaker 1: coronation for toleration, really hoping that something would come out
Speaker 1: of this new monarch. James wouldn't go that far, and
Speaker 1: he said that he'd suspend the monthly recusancy finds for
Speaker 1: as long as they continued to support him, so he
Speaker 1: kind of offered a halfway bargain there, and he also
Speaker 1: added a few people with Catholic sympathies to the Privy Council,
Speaker 1: including the Earl of Northumberland. So yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: seems like a bit of a win, especially coming after Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: But for many Catholics, they were just disappointed that they
Speaker 1: were disappointed that there weren't more changes than they saw
Speaker 1: under James. And as evidence of how disgruntled some people
Speaker 1: were with James already, two plots against the king were
Speaker 1: discovered as early as June and July three, just to
Speaker 1: give you an idea of exactly how all soon. That is,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth had died in March um, so really just a
Speaker 1: couple of months. These plots were called the Bye and
Speaker 1: the Main plots, and there were different people involved in each,
Speaker 1: but just to give you a summary of these. In
Speaker 1: the by plot, the goal was to kidnap the King
Speaker 1: and his eldest son, Prince Henry, and forced James to
Speaker 1: replace his chief ministers and to declare Catholic toleration. And
Speaker 1: the main plot, on the other hand, conspirators hoped to
Speaker 1: get rid of James entirely, and to put his English
Speaker 1: born cousin, Lady Arabel Stewart, on the throne. According to
Speaker 1: Crofts article, though both of these plots were pretty incompetent,
Speaker 1: which I guess is probably why they didn't work out,
Speaker 1: But the fact that they were found out didn't stop
Speaker 1: others from cooking up their own conspiracies, which is where
Speaker 1: the gunpowder plot begins. So we're gonna start talking about
Speaker 1: this conspiracy by talking about the conspirator specifically. The plot
Speaker 1: began with a man named Robert Catesby, and Catesby was
Speaker 1: a devout Catholic and he had become very disillusioned with
Speaker 1: the govern ment early on when he saw his father
Speaker 1: being persecuted for not conforming to Church of England rules.
Speaker 1: And Katsby himself had been imprisoned for a brief time
Speaker 1: after fighting in an uprising led by Robert Devreaux, who
Speaker 1: was the second Earl of Essex back in sixteen o one.
Speaker 1: So Katsby really wasn't like the Catholics who were entering
Speaker 1: James Rain with a lot of hope and thinking there
Speaker 1: was a lot of promise. He didn't trust in those promises,
Speaker 1: and he he wasn't counting on anything. Katsby was also
Speaker 1: kind of a ringleader of a small group of men
Speaker 1: who had taken part in the Essex Revolt with him,
Speaker 1: including Jack and kit Wright and Francis Tresham. Other men
Speaker 1: related to them were also sympathetic to their cause. Thomas Percy,
Speaker 1: for example, who worked for and was related to the
Speaker 1: Earl of Northumberland, was brother in law to the Rights
Speaker 1: and then Robert and Thomas Wintour, who were known for
Speaker 1: giving priest refuge in their homes, were related to Katesby.
Speaker 1: So at first they hoped that maybe Spain would invade
Speaker 1: England to help the Catholics, and they offered their support
Speaker 1: to Spain in that regard. But Spain was actually hoping
Speaker 1: to end hostility with England at the time, and was
Speaker 1: in the process of starting to negotiate a peace treaty
Speaker 1: to that effect, so Katsby and his buddy started to
Speaker 1: give up on Spain as a solution. We're not sure
Speaker 1: exactly when the idea for the plot started brewing, but
Speaker 1: by the beginning of sixteen oh four, Katesby shared with
Speaker 1: tom Win Tour that he thought of a way to
Speaker 1: solve their problem al right, So in January, the King
Speaker 1: had announced that he was going to call parliament soon,
Speaker 1: and Katsby's idea was to blow up the House of
Speaker 1: Parliament while they were in session, and apparently when Tour
Speaker 1: was kind of hesitant about this, but Katsby was a
Speaker 1: smooth talker and ultimately convinced the gang. So Kidsby held
Speaker 1: a meeting of people who were to be involved in
Speaker 1: the plot on May four in London at the Duck
Speaker 1: and Drake lodging house in the Strand, and he had
Speaker 1: three of his posse there, Tom Wintour, Thomas Percy and
Speaker 1: Jack Right. But there was a fifth person to a
Speaker 1: very important one, none other than Guy Fox himself. So
Speaker 1: Fox is an interesting character in this whole discussion about
Speaker 1: the tensions between the Protestants and the Catholics. He was
Speaker 1: a militant Catholic convert from Yorkshire. He was born in
Speaker 1: April thirteenth, fifteen seventy to a Protestant dad and a
Speaker 1: Catholic mom. His dad died when he was young, though,
Speaker 1: so his mom and her actions in the underground Catholic
Speaker 1: community in England really ended up being a big influence
Speaker 1: on him. Fox also went to St. Peter's School, in York,
Speaker 1: which also had Catholic leaning, so that probably had a
Speaker 1: big influence in how his views turned out grew up,
Speaker 1: and that's also where he might have met the Wright brothers.
Speaker 1: He ended up going into military service abroad, serving in
Speaker 1: the Spanish Army in the Netherlands from fifteen ninety three
Speaker 1: to about sixteen o four. In sixteen o three, though,
Speaker 1: he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Spain to
Speaker 1: try and convince them to invade England, much like Catesby
Speaker 1: and friends did before. And that's also where he might
Speaker 1: have come into contact with Katesby's crew through these interactions,
Speaker 1: so just looking for areas where he might have met
Speaker 1: up with them or where they may have heard of him.
Speaker 1: At any rate, Katesby and his fellow plotters needed someone
Speaker 1: like Fox in the mix. He was their muscle of sorts.
Speaker 1: He knew something about guns and AMMO, and since he'd
Speaker 1: been away from England for so long, his face was unknown,
Speaker 1: and that's a key point to remember, very important because
Speaker 1: he was going to have to do some sort of
Speaker 1: reconnaissance type work. So those five conspirators had their meeting
Speaker 1: in the Strand and they took an oath of secrecy,
Speaker 1: and they said mass, and then they talked about the plan.
Speaker 1: So by that time, Parliament had been in session since
Speaker 1: March and was expected to last at least a couple
Speaker 1: of months. More so, the plan was to lease a
Speaker 1: house next to the House of Lord's Chamber in the
Speaker 1: old Palace of Westminster. Then they would dig a tunnel
Speaker 1: from the sellers of the least House to the foundations
Speaker 1: of the Chamber and put some gunpowder in there. They'd
Speaker 1: bring gunpowder in at night from Catesby's house across the towns.
Speaker 1: So you can start to get the sense of why
Speaker 1: it would be important to not be a guy everybody
Speaker 1: recognized around town. Yeah, you wouldn't want to be recognized
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of at stake. If this worked,
Speaker 1: they were going to be blowing up Parliament. They were
Speaker 1: going to be killing the king. Also his son, and
Speaker 1: his other son was sickly. So the plan after this
Speaker 1: was to kidnap young Princess Elizabeth and basically make her
Speaker 1: their puppet queen. But I mean, the details surrounding this
Speaker 1: are still kind of sketchy, and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit more later. But once they
Speaker 1: settled on a general Plan, or part one of the plan,
Speaker 1: at least they set to it. Percy leased the house
Speaker 1: with the help of his connections to the Earl of Northumberland,
Speaker 1: but then on July seven, Parliament was postponed and scheduled
Speaker 1: to reconvene in February of six five. Before that meeting ended, though,
Speaker 1: they did manage to reconfirm all of those penalties that
Speaker 1: applied to Catholics and recusancy fines were reinstated, so adding
Speaker 1: fuel to the potential explosive fire exactly. So, they agreed
Speaker 1: to start working again in the fall keep moving towards
Speaker 1: their plot, but Parliament was delayed again until October six
Speaker 1: oh five, and eventually it was rescheduled again until November five,
Speaker 1: so they agreed to start work again that February. That March, though,
Speaker 1: they had a stroke of luck the lease for a
Speaker 1: ground floor seller between their tunnel and the House of
Speaker 1: Lords meeting space became available. According to the BBC, that
Speaker 1: seller extended right underneath the House of Lords, so it
Speaker 1: allowed the plotters to pack the gunpowder, thirty six barrels
Speaker 1: of it, in fact, right where it would be the
Speaker 1: most dangerous. So when we saw them last March, of
Speaker 1: sixteen o five. Our conspirators had just lucked out, and
Speaker 1: they had gotten the chance to Lisa Seller, which would
Speaker 1: was used at the time for coal storage. I believe
Speaker 1: that extended right underneath the House of Lords, so it
Speaker 1: made the tunnel unnecessary. It's a really good break for them, exactly.
Speaker 1: So the plotters started filling up the cellar with barrels
Speaker 1: and barrels of gunpowder, sneaking in at night, and they
Speaker 1: kept it pretty well concealed too. They covered it with
Speaker 1: iron bars and lots of bundles of kindling, so you
Speaker 1: couldn't just tell it was a cellar full of gunpowder.
Speaker 1: So over the next few months they managed to get
Speaker 1: about thirty six barrels of gunpowder in there, which was
Speaker 1: definitely enough to demolish everything in the immediate area, including
Speaker 1: of course the king and his heir and the members
Speaker 1: of parliament. But that was only if the gunpowder was
Speaker 1: fresh enough by the time they actually ignited it. And
Speaker 1: some folks have suggested that the gunpowder might have decayed
Speaker 1: um others say, well, maybe they were able to replace
Speaker 1: some of it, but that turns out to be a
Speaker 1: moot point, and it still would have done some damage
Speaker 1: we can assume. But during this time Fox assumed the
Speaker 1: role of the seller's caretaker, posing as a John Johnson,
Speaker 1: a servant of Thomas Percy, who was the plotter who
Speaker 1: would lease the space. And Fox was really well suited
Speaker 1: to this role too, because, as we mentioned in the
Speaker 1: previous podcast, he'd been out of the country for some time.
Speaker 1: So his appearance, which Gunpowder plot historian Antonio Frasier has
Speaker 1: described as quote tall, powerfully built, with thick reddish brown hair,
Speaker 1: a flowing mustache in the tradition of the time, and
Speaker 1: a bushy, reddish brown beard, was pretty much unknown in
Speaker 1: London at that time, which is fortunate because he does
Speaker 1: sound like a guy you probably would recognize if he
Speaker 1: saw him. Twice. Yes, very distinctive. So the plot seemed
Speaker 1: to be progressing steadily, but before fall even rolled around,
Speaker 1: the conspirators did something you should probably never do if
Speaker 1: you're really trying to keep a secret. They let more
Speaker 1: people in on it. Kind of a lot, but we'll
Speaker 1: just give you a refresher because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of names here, and they worked to add many more
Speaker 1: names to their party. But the original conspirators were catesby
Speaker 1: Tom Wintour Thomas Percy, Jack Right, and Guy Fox. So
Speaker 1: in the spring of sixteen o five, they included Robert Wintour,
Speaker 1: who was Tom's brother, Kit Wright, who was Jack's brother,
Speaker 1: and John Grant, who was Wintour's brother in law. Another guy,
Speaker 1: Robert Keys, who was probably related to the Wintour brother
Speaker 1: somehow or another, was also led into the group, as
Speaker 1: was katesby servant Thomas Bates. So, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: you figure you can trust your your brother. So they're
Speaker 1: telling a few people, but this is already starting to
Speaker 1: swell to a pretty large group of men. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then it got even worse when the plotters took a
Speaker 1: break from the preparations they were doing over the summer.
Speaker 1: Katesby also brought Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby, and Francis Tresham,
Speaker 1: Katesby's cousin by marriage, into the fold, mainly because of
Speaker 1: their wealth. Katesby had been funding this whole thing by
Speaker 1: himself so far, and he really needed some help to
Speaker 1: see it to its completion. And Rookwood and Digby were
Speaker 1: also so supposed to have a role in what will
Speaker 1: refer to as Part two of this plan. They both
Speaker 1: had a lot of horses that were going to be
Speaker 1: useful in the uprising that Katesby was planning after the explosion,
Speaker 1: but more specifically after the explosion, which would take place
Speaker 1: after Fox lit a slow match in the cellar. As
Speaker 1: soon as the King had come into the House of Lords.
Speaker 1: Katesby would ride from London to the Midlands, where he'd
Speaker 1: meete Digby, and Digby would have been waiting beforehand with
Speaker 1: some servants that the Red Lion and dun Church disguised
Speaker 1: as a hunting party. From there, they would supposedly go
Speaker 1: to kidnap Princess Elizabeth, the King's daughter, from the home
Speaker 1: of her governor and proclaim her queen. And we mentioned
Speaker 1: her in the previous podcast as well. And the reason
Speaker 1: that they were going to proclaim her queen is because
Speaker 1: Prince Henry would have died in the explosion. He was
Speaker 1: the oldest son of the king and four year old
Speaker 1: Prince Charles was too sickly. There were some there was
Speaker 1: some question as to whether or not he was going
Speaker 1: to survive, and they didn't want to place all their
Speaker 1: hopes on him. So yeah, that was the general idea
Speaker 1: of the plot. But what was going to happen next,
Speaker 1: after they had kidnapped Princess Elizabeth is sort of unclear.
Speaker 1: In an article for History Today, Simon Adams says, that's
Speaker 1: quote one of the major mysteries of the plot. So
Speaker 1: presumably they would just try to marry Elizabeth off to
Speaker 1: some other Catholic European prince and solidify their Catholic regime
Speaker 1: that way, and they would create their own puppet queen essentially.
Speaker 1: According to an article by Pauline Croft in History Review, though,
Speaker 1: Tresham was uneasy about the whole plot pretty much as
Speaker 1: soon as he heard it. So giant red flag here.
Speaker 1: He's not liking what he hears. You can't take it
Speaker 1: back once you tell somebody all about your plot either.
Speaker 1: But regardless of how everyone felt about it, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's still more than ten people. That's just a lot
Speaker 1: of people to be involved in what's supposed to be
Speaker 1: a secret plot. So maybe what happened next really isn't
Speaker 1: that surprising. On October five, just days before Parliament was
Speaker 1: set to meet William Parker, who's better and own as
Speaker 1: Lord Monteagle, received an anonymous letter warning him to quote,
Speaker 1: devise some excuse to shift your attendance at this Parliament
Speaker 1: to avoid quote a terrible blow. So basically, stay away
Speaker 1: for your own good, don't go to parliament. So Lord
Speaker 1: Monteagle was a former Catholic himself. He had also participated
Speaker 1: in that Essex uprising with Katesby and friends that we
Speaker 1: mentioned in the earlier podcast, and he had at least
Speaker 1: publicly converted to the Protestant religion. Still he had Catholic connections,
Speaker 1: especially through his marriage. Trasham was Montegal's brother in law,
Speaker 1: so um, unfortunately for Kate's By, Tresham had a few
Speaker 1: brothers in law to consider. But that's why the letter
Speaker 1: is often attributed to Tresham because of that family connection.
Speaker 1: But we really don't know for sure who sent it,
Speaker 1: who warned Lord Monteagle. Yeah. Croft actually throws out some
Speaker 1: other potential sources of the letter. She writes, for example,
Speaker 1: that Tom Winter sometimes served as montegal secretary, so there's
Speaker 1: a connection there. But there's another theory that's even more
Speaker 1: interesting to me at least. Croft also suggests that it's
Speaker 1: possible that Monteagle himself wrote the letter and just incorporated
Speaker 1: information that he gleaned from some of his Catholic cohorts
Speaker 1: to tip people off under under the guise of an
Speaker 1: anonymous letter right but regardless of where it came from.
Speaker 1: Montegal shared this letter with Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl
Speaker 1: of Salisbury, the head of the monarchy secret police, and
Speaker 1: the King's Secretary of State. Salisbury, in turn, of course,
Speaker 1: shares the letter with the King, and there aren't any
Speaker 1: specifics in the letter, so they wait a couple of
Speaker 1: days before they raise any sort of alarm. Katesby in
Speaker 1: the meantime he hears about the letter too, and he's
Speaker 1: obviously worried that the plot has been betrayed, so he
Speaker 1: consults with his co conspirators and they actually decided just
Speaker 1: to go ahead with the plan. They suspected I've read
Speaker 1: that Tresham was at fault, but he swore to them
Speaker 1: that he didn't do anything, so they just said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's go. They weren't going to just complete rushed into
Speaker 1: it blindly though, just sname case. On November four, Percy
Speaker 1: visited with his boss and his relative, the Earl of Northumberland,
Speaker 1: whose connections had of course helped Percy lease the house
Speaker 1: in the cellar in the first place. He checked with
Speaker 1: him to try to gauge whether or not the Earl
Speaker 1: of Northumberland knew anything about the plan. Ironically, Percy did
Speaker 1: not warn his relative to try to stay away from
Speaker 1: Parliament himself that day. But Percy left the meeting feeling
Speaker 1: pretty reassured that they were in the clear. Nobody knew
Speaker 1: it was good, so it is all just full speed
Speaker 1: ahead for the gunpowder plotters, or so they think, because
Speaker 1: Saulisbury by this time has ordered the area all around
Speaker 1: the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, to be searched.
Speaker 1: During the first search, though they didn't find anything, though
Speaker 1: they did run into Fox there. He was, of course,
Speaker 1: posing as John Johnson, and so they took him basically
Speaker 1: for what he was posing to be. They took him
Speaker 1: for a servant. The gunpowder, as we mentioned, was concealed,
Speaker 1: so they didn't see that in the search either. They
Speaker 1: did notice all of that kindling, though, the kindling that
Speaker 1: we mentioned that was concealing the gunpowder, and they thought
Speaker 1: it was a little weird that that was all there.
Speaker 1: But when they realized that Thomas Percy, who was of
Speaker 1: course a well respected gentleman pensioner, was leasing the space,
Speaker 1: they figured, all right, it's probably okay. But then, according
Speaker 1: to that Craft article, again Montego raised suspicient about the
Speaker 1: fact that Percy was leasing the space even though he
Speaker 1: had his own home in London, you know, like, why
Speaker 1: does Percy need this place anyway? The King ordered another
Speaker 1: search after that, and they found Fox at about midnight
Speaker 1: on November four, along with the gunpowder, very incriminating slow
Speaker 1: match and a watch that Percy had given him to
Speaker 1: check the time with. So the plot was done caught
Speaker 1: red handed. So for Box was arrested as John Johnson
Speaker 1: and thrown into the Tower of London, where it said
Speaker 1: that he was interrogated and tortured to reveal the names
Speaker 1: of the other conspirators, even though torture was illegal in
Speaker 1: England at the time. It took two days to break
Speaker 1: Fox down for him to finally give up the names
Speaker 1: of the others who were involved in the plot. Percy's name,
Speaker 1: of course, had already been linked with the leases, so
Speaker 1: there was already a warrant out for his arrest. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: though Kate Sby Rookwood, the right brothers, Percy and Bates
Speaker 1: all roads in the Midlands where part two of the
Speaker 1: plan was supposed to happen. But of course that wasn't
Speaker 1: going to happen now. Instead, they met up with the
Speaker 1: other co conspirators, raided Warwick Castle for fresh horses, and
Speaker 1: then went looking for help and apparently got refused by
Speaker 1: several Catholic safe houses. They just kept going from house
Speaker 1: to house, but nobody would join them and nobody would
Speaker 1: offer them help. I was interested in that point because,
Speaker 1: I mean, it suggests me at least that word of
Speaker 1: the plot must have spread really quickly, I mean all
Speaker 1: the way up in the Midlands. Two houses to know
Speaker 1: better than to actually accept the people into your home. Well,
Speaker 1: a big deal was made out of it, which we're
Speaker 1: going to touch on a little bit later, But at
Speaker 1: that time, yeah, I guess people knew it wasn't a
Speaker 1: good idea to to protect these people. So they eventually
Speaker 1: stopped at Whole Beach House in Staffordshire, where they thought
Speaker 1: they could at least put up a defense there. But
Speaker 1: they messed up right in the beginning by putting their
Speaker 1: damp gunpowder by the fire to dry, So of course
Speaker 1: the gunpowder exploded and it burned a couple of them
Speaker 1: in the process. It blinded one guy. It's all rather
Speaker 1: ironic if you think about it long and hard. But
Speaker 1: of course at this point the odds were even worse
Speaker 1: for them. Not only are they on the run for
Speaker 1: high treason, but they are injured, and according to Croff,
Speaker 1: they considered just getting out of the whole thing, blowing
Speaker 1: themselves up at this point. But by November eight men
Speaker 1: led by the High Sheriff of wush sure did them.
Speaker 1: In the rest of the way. They have this quick battle.
Speaker 1: Katesby the rights and Percy ended up dying from their wounds.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it was probably the best way to go. Thomas,
Speaker 1: Wintour could and Grant were captured. Five of the guys
Speaker 1: were still free, but not for very long. By the
Speaker 1: new year, all of them were captured, and then Tresham,
Speaker 1: when he was contained in the tower, fell ill and died.
Speaker 1: And some people think that maybe he was poison. Maybe
Speaker 1: even Monteagle took mercy on him because of that letter
Speaker 1: of warning and slipped him some poison helped him escape
Speaker 1: what would ultimately be a far worse punishment of drawing
Speaker 1: and quartering, which is the fate the rest of them
Speaker 1: were destined for. Yep, all the plotters who weren't dead
Speaker 1: were put on trial January six, six and of course
Speaker 1: they were all found guilty of high treason and executed
Speaker 1: over the next couple of days. They were all hanged,
Speaker 1: drawn and quartered. So the plot was ultimately unsuccessful, and
Speaker 1: maybe because of that, it's been the subject of debate
Speaker 1: for many years. Some have even suggested that there was
Speaker 1: no plot, that the plotters were actually set up by
Speaker 1: the government, specifically the Earl of Salisbury, who knew that
Speaker 1: the backlash after the plot was exposed would just reinforce
Speaker 1: Protestantism and strength and hatred towards Catholics in England. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in a nineteen interview with The New York Times, Fraser,
Speaker 1: who we mentioned earlier, said that the reason the origins
Speaker 1: of the plot are up for debate is that researchers
Speaker 1: are trying to quote draw conclusions from imperfect records and
Speaker 1: testimonies taken under torture. She says that you really have
Speaker 1: to assess the evidence and make up your own mind.
Speaker 1: And for her part, she does believe there was a plot.
Speaker 1: According to Teaching History, most historians do generally accept this idea.
Speaker 1: Now they do think there was something going on, but
Speaker 1: the results of government conspiracy would have been aiming for
Speaker 1: still came to pass. The Gunpowder plot just made anti
Speaker 1: Catholic feelings in England more intense. There were new laws
Speaker 1: preventing Catholics from practicing law, serving as officers in the
Speaker 1: army or the navy, and they weren't allowed to vote.
Speaker 1: On the evening of that Guy Fox was caught. November five,
Speaker 1: sixteen o five, the first Guy Fox hype celebration took place.
Speaker 1: The people of London rang bells and lit bonfires to
Speaker 1: celebrate the fact that the King and his nobility were safe.
Speaker 1: In sixteen o six, the English government passed an act
Speaker 1: to make the celebration an annual event, which at first
Speaker 1: was religious in nature, with sermons and everything, and then
Speaker 1: later it became more of a raucous social event. In
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century people started burning effigies of the pope
Speaker 1: on the fires, and in the eighteenth century is when
Speaker 1: the Little Guy effigy appeared. Yeah, And in eighteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: since there was an increased emphasis on religious toleration, the
Speaker 1: sixteen o six Act was finally abolished and the Bonfire night.
Speaker 1: At that point the celebrations really started to morph into
Speaker 1: private bonfires and fireworks parties that children would go sell
Speaker 1: the guys on the street to fund and over the
Speaker 1: years it really became more of a family event in
Speaker 1: a lot of places with fireworks displays, kind of how
Speaker 1: we would celebrate Fourth of July here on sounds sort
Speaker 1: of similar to that, although people can definitely actos so
Speaker 1: if we're wrong about that, but certain similar elements. Right.
Speaker 1: So now Bonfire Night celebrations still exist, but they compete
Speaker 1: with other false celebrations like Halloween, and I'm really interested.
Speaker 1: We asked during the last podcast for people to send
Speaker 1: us um some examples of things that they do to
Speaker 1: celebrate Bonfire Night, if they celebrated it at all, and
Speaker 1: so hopefully we'll get to read some of those on
Speaker 1: an upcoming podcast. Kind of awesome to have this always,
Speaker 1: like I guess the week after Halloween to you can
Speaker 1: bring out your costumes again. Maybe I don't know, if
Speaker 1: you celebrate both and it's just like a two week
Speaker 1: long celebration or something exactly. The gunpowder plot didn't leave
Speaker 1: a mark, though, of a more serious mark than just
Speaker 1: all these bonfire parties. The Houses of Parliament are still
Speaker 1: searched just before the State Opening, which has been held
Speaker 1: in November since nine even though Parliament's website says this
Speaker 1: is retained as a picturesque custom rather than a serious
Speaker 1: anti terrorist precaution, for which of core there are proper
Speaker 1: mean I'm glad they qualified that for us. But Guy
Speaker 1: Fox on the gunpowder plot have also been invoked quite
Speaker 1: a bit in art and pop culture. One of the
Speaker 1: most well known examples is the one that we mentioned
Speaker 1: in part one of this podcast, which is the two
Speaker 1: thousand six movie V for Vendetta, based on the comic
Speaker 1: book series by Alan Moore, in which an anarchist known
Speaker 1: as V tries to bring down the government. Basically, that's
Speaker 1: the basic plot line of this and V wears a
Speaker 1: Guy Fox mask. And if you haven't seen this movie,
Speaker 1: I do highly recommend it, especially now that we've kind
Speaker 1: of gone over the story. I did enjoy it, Sarah,
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, right, haven't seen it? And I
Speaker 1: know now that I've admitted that. Whenever we admit there's
Speaker 1: a certain movie we haven't seen, we usually hear from
Speaker 1: people telling us I can't believe you haven't seen that.
Speaker 1: You're still getting Harry Potter email. I'm still getting Harry
Speaker 1: Potter emails. We're still getting ned Kelly emails, so you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll get emails about this one too, but
Speaker 1: maybe because of the movie and its association with popular
Speaker 1: revolution and anti establishment ideals that mask. The Guy Fox
Speaker 1: mask has shown up in other places to members of
Speaker 1: the hacker group Anonymous have been known to wear it.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Jonathan Strickland of tech Stuff about
Speaker 1: that recently. He brought it up to me when he
Speaker 1: found out we were doing this, and recently people involved
Speaker 1: in the Occupy Wall Street movement have been wearing it too,
Speaker 1: So it is interesting to see how this idea of
Speaker 1: Guy Fox is still very political. It makes me wonder, though,
Speaker 1: how many of the people wearing the masks today really
Speaker 1: know the story of Guy Fox, or even if they
Speaker 1: know who Guy Fox is and they know about the bonfires,
Speaker 1: did they know the whole history of the plot. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this
Speaker 1: episode is out of the archive, if you heard an
Speaker 1: email address or a Facebook U r L or something
Speaker 1: similar over the course of the show that could be
Speaker 1: obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at
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