Chris Carson Mr. Shanley Shakespeare 3 February 2010 The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 When most people hear about the Gunpowder Plot, they see a lone man attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament with his barrels of gunpowder. Despite his rather minor roll in the Plot (United Kingdom 6), Guy Fawkes has become the face and icon of the Plot. Many people don t understand the true depth and cause of the Plot. The Gunpowder Plot aimed to kill King James I and all members of Parliament in order to stop religious persecution of Catholic s throughout England (United Kingdom 2). But Catholic persecution was nothing new to England. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a direct result of the persecution and belittling of Catholic s since the departure of England from the Holy Roman Catholic Church, under the reign of Henry VIII in 1533. In order to properly understand the events of 1605, one must first know how and why Catholic people had been persecuted, beginning with the reign of Henry VIII. Henry s wife, Katherine of Aragon, had not yet produced a male heir to carry on Henry s reign. Despite his numerous attempts at making the marriage null and void, Henry was continuously denied a annulment from his wife by the Pope (Thurston Henry VIII ). Henry, fed up with waiting on his wife to produce a son, decreed England free from all superior papacy and departed from the Catholic Church in 1533 (Thurston Henry VIII ), and on 23 May that year, Chancellor Thomas Cranmer decreed Henry s marriage to Katherine null and void. A few days later, the Chancellor also claimed Henry s new marriage to Anne Boleyn valid. Despite his own personal reasons for
C. Carson 2 his actions, Henry unknowingly started a chain of events that lead to the Protestant Reformation in England (Kirsten). In 1536, Henry VIII and Parliament approved the seizure of Catholic monasteries (Gasquet). This allowed Henry to seize all the money and land from Catholic monasteries. All monasteries with 200 of income or lower were immediately seized and dissolved (Gasquet). This caused a dissolution of a large sum of the Catholic presence in England. At the time of the seizure the total amount of money that was received from the monasteries was 171,312 (Gasquet), all of which went to varying needs for England. As far as ranking members of the Church go, the dissolution made some eight thousand people homeless (Gasquet). However, this is not accurate as far as the untold numbers of people that lived in service to the church that were left homeless and jobless. However not all Catholic institutions were immediately seized. Friaries were spared dissolution until 1537 (Gasquet). A rather profound statistic is that between the years 1538 to 1539, some 150 Catholic monasteries were forced to sign over all deeds of land and income to the government (Gasquet). During this time of religious chaos, a rather notable rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace arose in northern England in 1536 (Burton Pilgrimage ). This particular rebellion garnered much sympathy all over England and spread across five counties. The prime organizer of this movement was an individual named Robert Aske (Burton Pilgrimage ), who took on the role as leader of 9,000 followers. Aske and his followers marched on York on the fifteenth of October 1536, allowing all in service of the monasteries (nuns, monks, friars, etc.) to return to the homes from which the dissolution had sent them. Their goal largely was to defend the monasteries that were seized in the dissolution brought on by Henry VIII (Shahan). The pilgrimage attracted a rather large amount of attention, so much so that the Earl of Shrewsbury,
C. Carson 3 as well as the Duke of Norfolk, entered negotiations (Burton Pilgrimage ). These negotiations took place at Doncaster, here by this time, Aske had assembled an army of around 40,000 followers (Burton Pilgrimage ), though at times the number assembled there is up for debate, as some sources say it was less, around roughly 30,000 (Shahan). Some of the various demands made by the group were the ceasing of Lutheran documents used in the newly established Church of England (Shahan), as well as demanding that a meeting of Parliament be held within one year (Burton Pilgrimage ). A quote from Robert Aske in his Narrative to the King, states: In all parts of the realm men s hearts much grudged with the suppression of abbeys, and the first fruits, by reason the same would be the destruction of the whole religion in England. And their especial great grudge is against the lord Crumwell. (Burton Pilgrimage ) Upon a full pardon from the king, Aske disbanded his army, which turned out to be not such a good idea. Aske was expecting the king to keep his promises; this of course was not done. Aske was then arrested and promptly executed in June of 1537 (Shahan), along with the other various leaders of the Pilgrimage. Without leaders, the army of pilgrims was crushed by the Duke of Norfolk (Burton Pilgrimage ). Upon the death of Henry VIII, his child son Edward VI assumed the throne as King of England. Edward s primary acts as king were his introductions of the Acts of Uniformity, himself passing the first two under his reign. The Acts of Uniformity were primarily designed to bring religious unity and stability to the country (Burton Uniformity ). The first of these acts was a document entitled The Book of Common Prayer ; it was a parliamentary document that instructed priests what days to conduct services, what saint days to honor and all other manner of religious purposes (Scannel). The name of the act presented is in actuality a shortened name of
C. Carson 4 the book; the full name of the document is The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church after the Use of the Church of England (Scannel; Burton Uniformity ). These new acts were staunchly rejected by Catholics who could not obey them due to there religious affiliation. The truly important aspects of the first act was that it translated all church services, which had originally been conducted in Latin, to English (Scannel; Malam 10) modern at the time. This, for obvious reasons, allowed for a great enlightenment among the common people of England. Though established to bring unity and stability to the Church of England, this purpose was mainly a façade. The true intent of the book was to remove and illegalize all church documents and doctrines that had previously been rejected by reformers (Scannel), though the book s sacraments held strong roots in Catholicism. A statement from J. Whickham Legg a correspondent in the The Guardian, stated: Without exemption these English Missals are Roman-- they have Roman Cannon to begin with; they have the Roman variables; in short, their structure is identical to that of the Roman Missal. (Scannel) This caused a public outcry, which in turn made need for a revision of the original Book of Common Prayer, and in 1552, pressure from the Protestant Reformers caused a revision of the first book, cleverly titled The Second Book of Common Prayer. The revision of the original document never came into full use though (until later), due to the death of Edward VI on the sixth of July, 1553 (Thurston Mary ) and the introduction of Queen Mary s (Bloody Mary) reign. Queen Mary I was queen only for five short years (1553-1558), but within that time, she contented herself with repealing many of the acts brought on by Henry VIII, her father, as well as her half-brother s two Acts of Uniformity. In 1553, a meeting of Parliament, among other things, reinstated the Catholic Mass and made all of England
C. Carson 5 surrender to superior papacy (Thurston Mary ). She spent most of that year and the next reinstating the old religion: the reinstitution of High Mass and the deprivation of Clergy from marriage are a few examples among many. During the following session of Parliament (1554), acts were passed reinstating punishment against heresy as well as repealing all (in their entirety) acts against Rome (Thurston Mary ) during the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI. Due to readoption of heresy consequences, Mary I got her namesake, Bloody Mary. Within a period of approximately four years, 277 persons (Thurston Mary ) were burned at the stake, charged with heresy. This is not something directly sought out by Mary, but her actions left an enduring scar on her reign. After the reign of Mary I, Elizabeth I, her sister, ushered in a new era of Protestant reformation. After inheriting the kingdom from Mary, she worked to restore the Church of England and reintroduce the Protestant state, starting with a reinstatement of the Second Act of Uniformity in 1559 (Thurston Mary ; Burton Uniformity ), and all the changes and revisions of the former laws that occurred with the Second Book of Common Prayer. The newly instated book, made several revisions and laws that were not included within the original version; one example is that all are to attend a service on Sunday, and anyone caught not in attendance without a reasonable excuse was automatically given a twelve pence (about two and a half dollars) fine (Burton Uniformity ). Any person or priest caught preaching outside of the book s guidelines was subject to punishment that increased in severity until a maximum term of life imprisonment (Burton Uniformity ) was imposed. It was also recorded that anyone speaking down upon the Book of Common Prayer (second) was to be imprisoned as well, the third offense punished with life in prison. This blatant persecution and treatment of Catholics surely evoked much discontent with the Monarchy, as well as figures of Parliament.
C. Carson 6 Fast forward almost fifty years, when much of this religious instability has come to a head, especially with the anointment of James I, originally James VI of Scotland ( Enduring Memory ), in 1603. Many Catholics believed that James would show leniency toward Catholicism ( Enduring Memory ), but this was quickly showing not to be true. He made no effort to change any of the conditions of the Acts of Uniformity. A daring man named Robert Catesby hatched a plan to blow up the House of Parliament along with the King (United Kingdom 2) and the entire Royal Family. He can t do it alone; he enlists help from a growing number of men. The names of all the conspirators are John Wright, Christopher Wright, Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes, Thomas Percy, Robert Wintour, Thomas Wintour, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, Everard Digby, Francis Tresham, and Thomas Bates (United Kingdom 2); various conspirators in the plot were involved in a earlier rebellion known as the Earl of Essex s Rebellion (Kirsten). Their plan in a nut shell was to gain access to a coal cellar bellow the House of Lords (United Kingdom 3); their plan had been originally to tunnel into the cellar, but Thomas Percy happened to work within Parliament ( Enduring Memory ), and rented the cellar for himself. There the gunpowder would sit in hiding until, on the first opening of Parliament, Guy Fawkes was commissioned to enter the cell, light the slow fuses, (United Kingdom 3) and escape before the explosion. But something went awfully wrong. The plotters made a decision that was believed by many to have been their downfall; they attempted to warn Catholic members of Parliament (Kirsten) from attending the Opening. No one knows exactly who was the one to undue their work, but nonetheless, an anonymous letter was sent to one Lord Monteagle (known as the Monteagle Letter), at the time the employer of conspirator Thomas Wintour (Kirsten). To this day the identity of the author of the Monteagle
C. Carson 7 Letter remains unkown (Kirsten). Moneteagle sent a brief letter of warning to the King himself, urging him to avoid the Opening of Parliament. Fearing for his safety, James I had the grounds around the House of Parliament searched. Famously, sometime around the hour twelve A.M. on the morning of the fifth of November 1604, Sir Thomas Knyvett, a leader of the Yeomen of the Guard, the royal guards (Malam 7), searched the coal cellar beneath the House of Lords, discovering the thirty six barrels of gunpowder. However, Fawkes was not in the cellar at the time of its discovery; he was waiting on the opposite side of the House, waiting for the hour he would spring into action, and upon the discovery of him, he was promptly arrested. Fawkes stated that had he been in the cellar at the time of Sir Knyvett s discovery, he would have fired the gunpowder right there (United Kingdom 6), taking all the lives in the cellar and House of Lords above. Upon the discovery Guy Fawkes was brought before the King himself, where he showed no remorse or attempt to hide his actions. After being taken to the Tower of London, the other conspirators names were discovered and the majority of them were arrested; the few that got away were tracked down and killed. Robert Catesby, the originator of the plot, was shot five days after the failure of the Plot, fleeing into the Midlands (United Kingdom 4). The trial for the conspirators was held on the twenty-seventh of January 1606. All but one of the men pleaded guilty. The conclusion was absolute, though; all were convicted and received the death penalty (United Kingdom 4). The executions of the men proceeded in a two-day fashion, half on the thirtieth and the others on the thirty-first, held near the entrance to St. Paul s Churchyard and the entrance to the Old Palace Yard of Westminster (United Kingdom 4). The men died being praised as heroes by some, while others thought of them as dubious villains.
C. Carson 8 The Gunpowder Plot s legacy is largely remembered due to the holiday known as Bonfire Night; it has lost much of its anti-catholic values but was originally instated to celebrate the safety of the King (Kirsten). Also it is tradition for effigies of the most famous conspirators called guys to be burned (United Kingdom 4) on the night of the fifth of November. The Plot has also started a series of traditions still practiced to this day; the Yeomen of the Guard still search the House of Parliament and the cellars below; though said to ensure there is never another would-be assassin, this is mainly for traditional purposes. The Gunpowder Plot was a daring plot of violence and would ve without a doubt changed history as we know it, had it succeeded. The men involved had their own very personal and, at the time, very important reasons for what they did. When many people hear about the Middle Ages or Renaissance they think automatically of Protestant persecution, but many people do not know about the long history of oppression towards Catholics that all began because a man wanted a divorce from his wife. This religious persecution throughout the Middle Ages is what brought on plans like the Gunpowder Plot.