The Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot by Henry Perronet Briggs
The execution of Guy Fawkes
January 31st 1606: Guy Fawkes executed
On this day in 1606, Guy Fawkes (or Guido Fawkes) was executed for plotting against the British Parliament and King James I. Fawkes was born in York in 1570 and soon converted to Catholicism, which prompted him to fight in the Thirty Years’ War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers. His Catholic zeal led to his involvement with Robert Catesby in England, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarchy by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. The group leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords and stockpiled gunpowder there. The authorities were alerted by an anonymous letter and arrested Fawkes, who was guarding the explosives, on 5th November 1605. He was questioned and tortured until he divulged the details of the Catesby plot against the monarchy - Fawkes’s signature on his confession is a barely-evident scrawl after his long torture. Fawkes and his co-conspirators were hanged in Westminster, London on January 31st 1606 in front of jeering spectators. The failure of the plot is commemorated in England every November 5th; this tradition began soon after the original plot and was even enshrined in law until 1859.
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