People around Britain will celebrate Guy Fawkes night on Friday November 5, but have you ever wondered why we burn a scarecrow of him every year?
It's one of the UK's stranger traditions, marking Guy Fawkes' failed attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605.
416-years later, the tradition shows no signs of dying out as people prepare to gather around bonfires and watch fireworks once again in 2021.
Ahead of Bonfire night on Friday, here's what you need to know about Guy Fawkes...
Who was Guy Fawkes?
Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 in York, converting to Catholicism after the death of his father aged 8.
It may have been over 400-years ago, but Guy Fawkes was fairly well travelled, heading to Europe to fight for Catholic Spain in the Dutch War of Independence against the Dutch Protestants.
Fawkes wanted to launch a Catholic rebellion in England, and sought people to support his cause.
After meeting Thomas Wintour and Robert Catesby, the three planned to assassinate King James I and replace him with a Catholic monarch in 1605.
Having purchased the lease to a room under the House of Lords, they stockpiled and stored gunpowder, which Guy Fawkes was in charge of looking after, posing as a caretaker under the name John Johnson.
However, an anonymous letter prompted authorities to search Westminster Palace, where they found Fawkes guarding the gunpowder.
He was tortured and questioned over the following days before admitting to the plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
Despite Fawkes' plans to kill him, King James actually expressed admiration for the man who was plotting his murder, claiming he had "a Roman resolution".
The King quickly got over this admiration however, sentencing everyone involved in the plot to death.
How did Guy Fawkes die?
Fawkes and the fellow members of the gunpowder plot group were sentenced to horrific executions, where their genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, their bowels and their hearts were removed and they were finally decapitated.
Before Fawkes was hung however, he fell to his death from the platform, before being quartered and his body parts sent to "the four corners of the Kingdom" as warnings to other potential traitors.
What did Guy Fawkes try to blow up?
Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, to kill the King and his government.
They wanted to replace the King with his daughter, who was third in line to the throne.
Why do we celebrate Guy Fawkes night?
On November 5 1605, people in London were encouraged to celebrate the fact the King had avoided assassination by lighting bonfires.
This became tradition, with the bonfires accompanied by fireworks from the 1650s onwards, while burning a model of Fawkes or other notable figures was introduced around 1673.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel