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hi everyone welcome back to the history and 20 podcast thanks for tuning in so it's just a bit of a shorter one today because it's a bit thematic and appropriate i suppose so today's episode is on the gunpowder plot from the 5th of november 1605. so quick overview about it it was obviously on fifth of november 1605 and it was at the houses of parliament in london england and the reason behind it was those religious differences for a start as the plotters were catholics and the king and his government and parliament were protestants so these sort of wounds that are still going on from the elizabethan reformation are still hurting in the early 17th century here and it was an assassination attempt against king james the first of england now the participants i will list them in full later on but the main ones we sort of need to know about there's a man called robert catesby guy fawkes of course and francis tresham amongst others but like i said i'll name the others in a bit and the outcome was obviously a failure for the plotters and the plotters were executed which we'll go into the uh grizzly details in a bit so the events lead into the gunpowder plot so why did it kick off so excuse me the gunpowder plot which is also known as guy fawkes night or simply bonfire night 5th of november whatever you like to call it fireworks night even it was an english catholic plot against king james the first who ran from 1603 to 25. now you might hear him called king james the first of england and sixth of scotland because he was both he was the stewart's successor he's the first stuart king set up the stuart dynasty in england so he ran from 1603 to 25 in england although he did reign before that in scotland but that's all we're concerned about at the minute is his reign in england now he was a protestant as i mentioned earlier and he descended the english throne in place of queen elizabeth the first who'd ran from 1558 to 1603 and she was also a protestant now his persecution of catholics was arguably stronger than elizabeth's was which sparked the need for drastic action in the minds of the plotters so the historian ronald hutton argues that english catholics initially had high hopes that james the first would end the elizabethan persecution of them and he'd actually encouraged these ideas initially to win further support for his accession as first stewart monarch like you've already got a scottish king who's becoming english king so he wants as much support as he can get but he soon reverted to the elizabethan style persecution of catholics because and in quote marks the weight of english public opinion had become so hostile to catholics and the fines levied on them were so lucrative so as a result those who were actually the catholic radicals tried to blow him and his entire parliament up so that was their response to his persecution wanted him blown up now who were the plotters as i mentioned earlier they were led by a catholic man called robert kurtzby now why did he decide to do this well his father had been persecuted in elizabeth first reign for refusing to conform to the church of england so his father had been persecuted he'd grown up seeing what this persecution meant and so he was radicalized from this now in total the plot is numbered 13 which absolutely was an unlucky number for all of them in the end so the reason i mentioned the three in the summary above is because arguably they're the three most significant of those thirteen so even so i'll name the thirteen and they are thomas bates robert catesby sir everett digby guy fawkes john grant robert keyes thomas percy ambrose rookwood francis tresham robert and thomas wintour and john and christopher wright now in the picture above there's eight of them and missing out of those eight are digby grant keys rockwood rookwood and tresham so you get an idea of the numbers that were there now curtsby and some of the other plotters actually put some money together in the months before this to rent a cellar which was directly underneath the house of lords building and over the course of these few weeks they transported a total of 36 barrels of gunpowder on little boats and barges across the river thames to store in the cellar now guy fawkes was put in charge of the explosives because he had 10 years experience in the military because he'd fought for the catholic spanish in the protestant netherlands during the dutch revolt which lasted from 1566 to 48 but forks only fought for 10 of those years and obviously before 1605. however we move on to the fifth of november the actual night bonfire night itself uh the plan didn't go to action so lord montego who was one of the lords who was due to be sitting in james's parliament on the 5th of november was also the brother-in-law of francis tresham which is why i mentioned his name so as the 5th of november approached lord montego received an anonymous letter which as fox would confess to under torture was written by or rather attributed to francis tresham who'd warned his brother-in-law not to attend parliament on the 5th of november as as the english political establishment would receive a quote terrible blow now sensing this danger montague alerted the government but it was decided amongst the government that they wanted to catch the plot as red-handed so they decided not to search the vaults under the parliament chamber until the night of the 4th of november which was quite risky thinking about it thinking that oh well there must be in there somehow waiting a day before the parliament was due to open but it worked so at approximately 11 pm on the 4th of november the search party entered the rented cellar and it was a man who was a justice of the piece a guy called sir thomas knivet or nivette who discovered a man guard in 36 barrels of gunpowder a pile of firewood and a fuse and that man was of course guy fawkes so the aftermath what happens then so guy fawkes is immediately arrested and questioned under the use of torture including as you'll see on your screen now the infamous rack which is where they were laid on it and there were little pulley systems on it where they would stretch the body so your muscles had tear and think awful sort of thing but he confessed under torture the names of his core conspirators and all 13 of them were eventually tracked down and all received or were set to receive the same punishment that was to be hung drawn and quartered now a record from the trial noted that each of them were to be drawn backwards from prison by a horsetail hanged cut down while still alive and a quote was have his privy parts cut off and burned before his face as being unworthily begotten and being unfit to leave any generation after him his bowels and inlet parts taken out and burnt after to have his head cut off and then and only then were their bodies to be quartered now fox's trial was set for the 31st of january 1606 along with robert keys ambrose rookwood and thomas wintour now forks had been drawn so he was battered and bruised all over as you can imagine being drawn from the prison cell up to the gallows but on his way up the scaffold to the gallows he jumped from a ladder and he broke his neck and died so he died of suicide forks now his body was never quartered like cut up and left to feed the birds and stuff but it was still chopped up into four different pieces and sent the four corners of the kingdom as a warning to other potential traitors so you can imagine the horrific scenes that would have depicted but people turned up in droves to see it it was a public spectacle in those days which couldn't imagine seeing that now could you certainly wouldn't want to i think for the most part so what legacy does it leave behind so surprisingly the immediate political consequences weren't actually massive there were tough new laws that were rushed through parliament against catholicism but there was no widespread persecution of catholics in england and the peace with catholic spain actually held out but the longer term consequences were more serious though so anti-catholic feeling directly from the gunpowder plot played into the hands of anti-catholic propaganda in the later 17th century in england and if you've seen my podcast on the 30 years war which kicked off in 1648 there's a lot of anti-catholic feeling there even from england so that can to an extent be attributed to the gunpowder plot um now if the pot hadn't been betrayed i know it's all ifs and buts and stuff but it would have been the most serious terrorist attack of the 17th century without question and it wouldn't have just blown up parliament the amount of gunpowder they had it would have blown up the entire centre of westminster now ronald hutton argues that the appropriate comparison is not with the terrorist attacks in 911 but with the impact of the atomic bomb on hiroshima which is the extent of damage it would have caused which is incredible really now obviously the most famous legacy the gunpowder plot is guy fawkes night which like i said earlier is also known as bonfire night of fireworks night and that was actually established as a holiday by parliament in 1606 the year after and it's been celebrated just about every year ever since maybe bar for a few years in the war second world war that is now it's celebrated in britain on the 5th of november every year which will be tonight so when this video is up hope everyone has a good one if you're celebrating it letting off some fireworks and safely of course and having bonfires obviously safely and occasionally more of an archaic thing now people don't really do it these days but sometimes effigies of guy fawkes are burdened on the bonfires while fireworks are enough to symbolize the explosions that would have occurred had the plot has not been discovered so that was just a short one there and bonfire night i hope you enjoyed it and uh hopefully there'll be another one soon so thanks for tuning in i'll see you next time take care