Happy Bonfire Night
Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot.
The British are celebrating the anniversary of the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot.
A group of English Catholic conspirators including an explosives expert, Guy Fawkes, stashed 36 barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the Parliament building with the intent of blowing up the members of Parliament and King James I during the official opening of Parliament on November 5th, 1605.
Bonfire Night is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. Effigies of Guy Fawkes, and occasionally the Pope, are traditionally thrown on the fires. Effigies of modern politicians have made their appearances at the celebration.
As Robert Cecil was involved, I doubt anyone will ever know the truth about the plot.
11 comments
Ahh yes! A shame they are not around today… they could be very useful! 😉 😛
This is a better Wiki link Bryan (it is on the general page you linked to. A direct link may be less confusing). 😉
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
And yes, as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal (the fifth rank of the Great Officers of State of the UK) he certainly had easy access and could arrange matters so that the gunpowder could be secreted in the basement. It’s difficult to move and hide 36 barrels of gunpowder without *inside help*. 🙂 Still, no real proof has ever been found that he was directly involved. However, he was trained as a Master Spy and was, by all accounts, quite good at his trade-craft. He was raised to the Peerage as Baron in 1604, thence to Viscount and finally Earl in 1605 and was heavily involved then in State security. 🙂 It may even have been he who wrote the anonymous letter to the 4th Baron Monteagle that foiled the plot. *shrug* So… who knows? 😉
He laid the groundwork for the way things are done in many of the Western intel operations, and he certainly was capable of just about anything, including setting up a group of Catholic morons, but he at least knew how to keep a secret, so we’ll never know.
Yep. Which is why I know something about the 1st Earl of Salisbury, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. His Biography was required reading. His, and others. 😉 🙂 Of course, being a loyal Commonwealth Nation, we had access to some material not usually accessible outside of deep vaults in England. 😆
Cecil was engaged in much secret communication with James in Scotland towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign. It was, in fact, with his help that James was able to win the Throne. This is why I doubt he planned to kill James. It is quite possible he planned to have a few *enemies* (his and/or James) killed for treason. That I can believe! 😉 Even though he was a mover behind James, he was loyal to Elizabeth and help her last years as Monarch be as peaceful (even tranquil) as possible. He wanted James to succeed Elizabeth, rather than Sir Walter Raleigh (for example), and campaigned secretly against all other contenders. Because of Cecil more than anyone else, on the death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March, 1603 James was named (proclaimed) king, and took possession of the throne without any opposition. For his reward, Cecil was elevated three times and given the role of Master Spy and essentially *head of security* in James Court.
History is fascinating! We can learn so much. 😉 It always amuses me when the great unwashed think that something that happens today *is all new and wonderful*! No… not usually. 😆
BTW, he (Cecil) was the author of a book published in 1606 entitled An Answer to Certain Scandalous Papers scattered abroad under Colour of a Catholick Admonition
(I suppose back then, a title was required to be quite descriptive.) 😉
He wasn’t known as a big fan of Catholics in England and was quite hard on them after the failed plot. 🙂
Well, in fairness, Elizabeth’s half-sister Mary wasn’t exactly nice to Protestants, so some payback was to be expected and Spain involved the Pope in its actions against England. But then, it is always useful to governments to involve religion when the case for making trouble isn’t exactly clear because it is mostly based on the personal animosity of leaders, rather than national interests.
Cecil certainly wasn’t the first person in the role, but he is generally considered the first who was clearly identified.
There are actually parallels between the causes of the *gunpowder plot* of 1605 and what is beginning to happen in the USA with the persecution of Muslims, and 9/11.
The plot came about because Queen Elizabeth I has passed very strict and restrictive laws against Catholics. As far as she and her Court were concerned, England was a Protestant Nation (sound familiar?) 😉 Catholics were forced to attend Protestant Mass on Sundays or pay increasing fines. They were forbidden to hold or attend Catholic Mass (it was in fact illegal). Catholic Weddings and Baptism were forbidden, and so on. It was called the Act of Uniformity. Anyone who refused to abide was called a Recusant.
It basically all began just after Elizabeth became Queen. The Catholic Church questioned her legitimacy (she was an illegitimate child) and the Pope said that Catholics were not to see her as their legitimate Monarch. The Pope in fact excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I and it began to be believed that the Church would even tolerate the Queen being assassinated. Also at that time, Puritans were becoming even more forceful in their demands for England to follow Puritan belief’s. In order to deal with both the Puritans and the Catholic Church, Elisabeth did what Governments throughout history (and still today) do… Began a carefully planned fear campaign, which was successful. 🙂
Catholics in England began to look towards James in Scotland succeed Elizabeth. He was seen as more tolerant of Catholics. He marries a Catholic (Queen Ann of Denmark). And in fact when he began his Reign, he stopped the fines for Recusants and relaxed the searches and spying on Catholics. All was well until 1604. James had become increasingly under pressure by Protestants and the Puritans. The Puritans in particular led James to believe that the Catholics were growing in numbers and power and that they were taking advantage of the Kings *kindness* towards them. What really happened was that they had underestimated the actual number and wealth of Catholics because they kept to strict secrecy. Under James, they felt more comfortable and *came out of the closet*. 🙂 Many of them were young and wanted to have *normal* lives. Under the Act of Uniformity, many avenues were closed to them. The couldn’t study Law, they couldn’t become a master of any Profession, couldn’t join the Military, etc. So they became very disappointed and frustrated when in early 1604 James publicly announced his detestation for the Papist Catholic Religion and ordered all Jesuit and Catholic Priests to be sent out of the Realm. All the anti-Catholic Elizabethan legislation were reinstated. It was too much for some. Part of the reason James did this was to pacify the Puritans and get them back on side.
It is quite possible (even probable) that the plot would have succeeded if it had happened when initially planned on Feb 1605 (the State opening of Parliament). However, Parliament was prorogued (suspended) until 3rd October because of plague (which happened often in London at that time). By Feb, Cecil would probably have had no information on the plot. One problem the conspirators had was that they didn’t really know how or where they would secrete the gunpowder. Because of the delayed parliament, a vault (store room) directly under The House of Lords in Westminster became available when a coal merchant decided to move out (it should be remembered that at that time, Westminster was also used for merchants and traders, as well as Parliament etc. It was a veritable rabbit warren at the lower levels from the ground floor, and was heavily trafficked. The so called *cellar* where the gunpowder was actually on the ground floor. The barrels of gunpowder were covered with coal and wood to hide them. The King & Queen, 60 Lords, the entire senior hierarchy of the Protestant Church, The Senior 12 Judges of England and their legal attendants, and most of the English Aristocracy would have been there for the opening of Parliament. Parliament was delayed again, until Nov. 5th.
With all the waiting, Robert Catesby (the plot leader) decided to confess to Father Oswald Tesimond. Tesimond was horrified but the Law of the Church was bound by the Seal of the Confessional. He told his superior, Father Henry Garnet, under Seal of the Confessional (which can only be broken by the person giving the confession’s consent). Garnet realised that he would be guilty of Misprision of Treason.Garnet refused to give Catesby approval for the plot, which angers Catesby. Catesby decided to get more people and their money involved in the plot, 13 in all by this stage. AN unlucky number for Catesby. The 13th man was his cousin Francis Tresham, also a Catholic. Tresham’s father-in-law was Monteagle. A mysterious letter appeared at Monteagles house, warning Monteagle not to attend the next Parliament and that it would be dangerous. I believe that Monteagle learned of the plot from his son-in-law and it was Monteagle that wrote the letter because he stood to gain the most from it (he was a hero and was given much in return). 🙂 I don’t think it was Cecil, because if he had known about it earlier and had left it until the last minute to tell the King, the King had every right to sack Cecil for not doing his job properly. Cecil was lucky in the end.
If the plot had succeeded, I think it would not have had the effect that Catesby and the other plotters expected. I think it would have strengthened the Protestants and they would have massacred the Catholics, and anyone they suspected might be Catholic. 🙂 It would have been England’s 9/11.
That is a very brief summation, and a lot or details are necessarily missing. Hopefully it will suffice. 🙂
It’s a shame ignoramuses are running the USA (including behind the scenes). *shrug* 🙂
And people wonder why, when they came to New Holland [later New York state] a couple of decades later, my ancestors built taverns, not tabernacles.
There were no churches built in upstate New York until the third wave of settlement after the Revolution. Neither English nor religion were popular up there.
LOL yeah. 😉
I find it highly amusing and ironic that King James and his entire Court and the Aristocracy all owe their lives to a plague of rats! 😉 😈
In which case, nobody would be thinking much of Cecil’s prowess as a *Master Spy*! 😉 One thing they rarely mention in training… luck plays a huge part! (actually, my instructors/lecturers preferred the term *opportunity* and drilled into us often that our very survival may depend upon us spotting and taking advantage of these opportunities when presented!) In mission briefings, we were given the ROE’s (rules of engagement) and a list of possible TOE’s (target’s of opportunity) to watch out for. The ROE conveniently didn’t apply to TOE’s “All’s fair in love and war” after all! 😉
Different training philosophies, because mine stressed the possibility of the “mistake” and how to use it and equipment failures and bad switch settings led to a lot of useful information. Of course, screw-ups are a basic premise of decryption, nearly as important as patterns. Human behavior is rarely random, and if you find the pattern you can begin to predict.
I’ve been in a few briefings where it was obvious to everyone in the room that the mission was not what was stated, but something else that hadn’t been blessed yet, but “might” yield results. Targets of opportunity were the only really effective air strikes we had in SEA.
I learned a very valuable lesson in Cambodia. When you are on a UN mission, you have to become very *creative* if you actually want to get anything done! Thankfully, in the 80’s, my Commanders actually cared about the innocent villages that was supposedly the whole reason for us being there (but the truth was that that was just to keep the press happy). All missions and ROE’s had to be approved by the UN Command, but TOE’s didn’t. So, for awhile, we would have a briefing (with the obligatory UN *observer* present), and the briefing officer would use a code phrase which meant “Ignore the mission and concentrate on the TOE’s!” It took the UN a while to realise that we were really very good at our job’s and knew where certain important target’s would be before they did! Our intel was a lot better than the UN’s. 🙂 Eventually they twigged, but we got to eliminate a lot of seriously evil scumbags beforehand! 🙂
Sadly, the UN is a political show pony, because that’s the way the US, Russia, China, UK, France want it! It’s a convenient way to “Be seen to be doing something!” *shrug* What’s new?
In SEA the problem was MAC-V was totally infiltrated and targeting was skewed to protect real targets, so after a while the “real targets” were never forwarded up that particular chain, and inserted in the lower-level targets of opportunity. When it became obvious that the real intelligence was being ignored and Saigon was living in a different world, you ignore Saigon. That’s why Tet happened.