Guy fawkes’ gunpowder plot Name: ______
Read the Gunpowder Plot . Write an obituary which is a death notice for Guy Fawkes. Decide if you want to honor him as a patriot or make him a villain – traitor. Use facts from the article to include in your obituary for Guy.
Guy Fawkes [1570 to 1606] was one of a group of Roman Catholics who plotted to blow up the Parliament building. This was known as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.King James I was on the throne of England, which broke away from the Catholic Church in 1536. The Church of England replaced it & everyone was forced to change religions but there were still many Catholics who refused. In 1605, Fawkes joined 13 Catholics & planned to remove King James from the throne & replace him with a Catholic king.
The plotters rented space in the cellars of the House of Lords in Parliament and filled it with gunpowder. Fawkes was to set off the gunpowder during the opening of Parliament, November 5, 1605. One of the plotters, however, worried that some of their Catholic friends would be at the opening and get killed. So someone wrote to warn them not to be there that day. One of the receivers of the letter showed it to King James. The cellars were searched, gunpowder found, and Fawkes caught, arrested and jailed. He was later tried for treason, or betraying his country, and sentenced to death.
After days of horrible torture, Fawkes gave up the names of the other plotters. Eight were tried, found guilty, and executed by hanging until they passed out; then their body parts were mutilated, and then the bodies [still alive or dead] were drawn and quartered by tying arms and legs to four horses and hitting them to run away, tearing up the body. Fawkes escaped this by jumping off the scaffold with the noose around his neck, thus breaking his own neck and dying instantly. His body was then dismembered and displayed in shop windows.
On November 5th Londoners were encouraged to celebrate the King's escape from assassination by lighting bonfires. Act of Parliament followed, declaring November 5th as a day of thanksgiving for "the joyful day of deliverance" of his majesty! Today, For centuries since then, communities built big bonfires and make an effigy or stuffed life size replica of Guy Fawkes using old clothes stuffed with straw or newspaper, to burn on the bonfire!