THE GUNPOWDER PLOT
See Also: ASSASSINATIONS & ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS; CORONATIONS Hereditary and Feudal Office-Holders; DEVELOPMENTS The Adelphi; EXECUTIONS Post-Execution, Tyburn Martyrs; PARLIAMENT The Commons, Robert Maxwell; PARLIAMENT The Palace of Westminster; PARLIAMENT The State Opening of Parliament; MENU
The
Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a conspiracy by a small group of Roman Catholics to
assassinate King James I and everyone who was attending the State Opening. They sought to do this by renting space in
the cellars beneath Parliament. There,
they amassed barrels of gunpowder. The
scheme was revealed as the result of Francis Tresham, one of the conspirators
advising Lord Mounteagle, a relative of his who was due to be at the ceremony,
not to attend it. The peer informed the
authorities of his suspicions and a search soon revealed the explosives.
Website:
www.parliament.uk/about/how/occasions/stateopening
The Catesbys
The
Catesby family have made something of a habit of forfeiting their estates,
having done so in 1265, 1485, and 1605.
In the last instance it was Robert Catesby's involvement in the Plot
that did for them. Technically, the
resulting Bill of Attainder continued to be in operation until the 1970s, its
provisions legally prohibited the family's members from voting. However, by then the Catesbys were unaware
that the measure was still in force and had been leading an ordinary civil life
for several generations.
Location:
Catesby s,
64-67 Tottenham Court Road, W1T 2EU. The site of a furniture
retailing business that the family owned in the 20thC. (red, brown)
The Celebration of November 5th
Since
King James I's reign it has been a tradition to mark November 5th
and Parliament's delivery from the Gunpowder Plot with bonfires. The celebration, despite its origins, has
long been free of any sectarian character.
In the
18thC the celebration of November 5th was by no means to
do solely with the discovery of the Plot.
King William III had landed in Britain at Torbay on 5 November 1688,
thus starting the Revolution of 1688.
The Dutchman was the hero of Nicholas Rowe's play Tamerlane
(1701). For more than a century the
dramatic work was performed in commemoration of the prince's arrival.
Lord
Robert Grosvenor was a progressively-minded Whig who held strong Low Church
Anglican beliefs. In 1857 the M.P. was
the principal figure behind a number of changes that Parliament made to the
Church of England's calendar.1
These included abolishing the services of thanksgiving that marked the
Plot, King Charles I's martyrdom, and the restoration of the monarchy in
1660. These reforms seem to have derived
from the politician's sincere belief that the remembrances were
inappropriate. However, they also
indicated that he was not afraid of the mob.
In 1850 the government had allowed the Roman Catholic Church to
establish a legally recognised hierarchy in Britain. This had triggered a number of
pope-burnings. These occasions had
involved effigies being paraded through the streets of London and then set on
fire. Grosvenor's reform passed smoothly
through the legislature. In the event,
no popular reaction was triggered. In
turned out that most of the people who had made up the large crowds that had
attended the conflagrations had done so in order to partake in a traditional
form of entertainment rather than because they had possessed ardent sectarian
opinions.
Fireworks
did not become a feature of celebrating November 5th until the High
Victorian era when the government ended its own monopoly upon the manufacture
of gunpowder. The introduction of the
Fireworks Code in 1976 led to some varieties of firework being phased out. As a result, many children take a greater
interest in Hallowe'en than in the 5th.
See
Also: EXECUTIONS The Executed, King Charles I; FOLK TRADITIONS; WEATHER Wind, The Protestant Wind
1. Two years earlier Grosvenor had sponsored a Sunday Trading
Bill. This measure had triggered a
popular protest movement. A crowd of
150,000 people had gathered in Hyde Park to signal their opposition to it.
Searching Parliament's Cellars
On the
eve of the State Opening, the Yeomen of the Guard carry out a ceremonial search
of Parliament's cellars. The custom is
meant to derive from the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The first recorded instance of such a rummage
dates from 1641, which was a time when political tension was mounting prior to
the outbreak of the Civil Wars. (The
Yeomen's task has been made relatively easy by the fact that the palace s
subterranean chambers are no longer rented out.)
Location:
The Palace of Westminster, Parliament Square, SW1A 0AA (purple, blue)
See
Also: MILITARY CUSTOMS; SUBTERRANEAN
David
Backhouse 2024