Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night

Every year is celebrated in England the Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night on the 5^th of November, this celebration dates back from the Gunpowder Treason Day in 1605, the events known as the Gunpowder Plot in which a group of provincial Catholic Englishmen were condemned to death such as Guy Fawkes in charge of trying to blow up the Parliament in order to assassinate the Protestant king James I and replace in the throne James I´s daughter: the nine year-old princess Elisabeth of Scotland, later queen of Bohemia. Although there were thirteen Catholics accused of the plot, Guy Fawkes was the most well-known mercenary for the Spanish cause in the Dutch wars and many others European wars supporting the Catholic party and he was also caught guarding a hoard of explosives placed beneath the House of Lords. From that year onwards and due to the introduction of the Observance of 5^th November Act enforcing an annual public day to celebrate the failure of the plot´s against the Protestant king. The conspiracy was revealed by an anonymous letter received by lord Monteague and showed to the king James I who ordered Thomas Knyvett to search the cellars underneath the Parliament, they found Guy Fawkes with a match and a watch leaving the cellars where hidden barrels of gunpowder under piles of firewood and coal were discovered. Members of the King´s Private Chamber tortured him and though he remained steadfast and pleaded not guilty, finally he revealed under torture the names of the conspirators and they were hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered his members to the “four parts of the kingdom as an advice to future conspirators”.

This commemoration carried every century a strong mockery against the Pope and later against main political enemies of England (Hitler, Irish independentist Charles Stuart Parnell, etc) and recently against English ruling politicians such as Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, etc. People used to burn an effigy of Guy and children used to ask for money to buy fireworks and make their guy with straw, clothes, cardboxes, etc. The towns of Lewes and Guildford were especially concerned with this celebrations due to fostering traditions since the seventeenth century due to violente class-based strives, today these fights are appeased and the parades occur peacefully and politely in England and some parts of USA. The Pope and the Spanish Catholics monarchs were the main effigies or "guys" during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, later the main British politicians and figures of gossip world have been replaced as the famous "guys" to be burnt on the bonfires.