bonfire night?

[arrowsmithbt]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "bluesqueak" <pipdowns at e...> wrote:

> Religious persecution is almost too mild a phrase; Europe in the 
> Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries was a constantly bubbling 
> religious war. England, as one of the Protestant countries, had 
> several invasion attempts made against her by Catholic powers (Drake 
> and the Spanish Armada is the most famous). 
> 
> So the Catholics within England were under automatic suspicion - it 
> was invariably assumed that they didn't see the Protestant 
> government as a legitimate government and would therefore support 
> the Catholic enemy powers. Which some did. Giving the basically 
> loyal rest a very bad name. It wasn't until the early nineteenth 
> century that we got full political emancipation; and the dying 
> embers of the religious wars can still be seen in Northern Ireland. 
>

Politics was a rough game in those days; the losers usually ended up
on the scaffold. And  religion wasn't noted for brotherly love and
tolerance either.

The odd thing is - although Fawkes is the one that's best remembered
he wasn't the leader of the Plot, that was Catesby. But it was Fawkes 
(previously a mercenary and soldier of fortune) who  was found 
crouching with his dark lantern among barrels of gunpowder in the 
cellars under Parliament.

This was the third plot uncovered in quite a short time span, all
associated with replacing the English Protestant Succession with a 
Catholic regime (the others were the Main Plot and the Bye Plot).
Invariably such plots were instigated by people of some standing,
the gentry or minor aristocracy. It was assumed that once they
had succeeded the proles would fall into line and do as they're told.

Not necessarily a valid assumption (as evidenced forty years later
by the Civil War).  
One of the most widely read books of the time was Foxe's Book of 
Martyrs, which chronicled the horrors of the last time there was a 
Catholic ruler - Bloody Mary. Hundreds had been publically burned 
for professing their Protestant faith. In effect, the Inquisition had been
brought to England. The risk of any repetition was greeted with public
horror and judicial violence for the next 200 years. They had long folk 
memories in those days.

Elizabeth (who succeeded her) tried to lower  the level of fanaticism 
("I will make no window into men's souls.") But the Pope declared open 
season on her, assassination would not be a sin, dethroning her was a 
Catholic duty. Catholics in England were caught in a cleft stick; if they
were 'good' Catholics they were automatically potential traitors to the
Crown. Most of them just wanted to get on with living a quiet life,
practising their religion discreetly. Political power-plays made this
all but impossible for generations. 

Even so, some of the most powerful in the land still practised the Old 
Religion and that was the downfall of the Gunpowder Plot. Word got 
around, there were those who didn't want Catholic Lords blown up with
the rest - and one of them revealed the Plot to the authorities.

Public shock!horror. The equivalent in today's terms in the US would
be the mass murder of House and Senate, along  with the members of
the Supreme Court - while they were being addressed by the President.
No small thing; not a cry for religious freedom but an attempted regime
change by decapitation. 

Given the paranoia of the times the surprising thing was how few were
executed. The London crowd were a blood-thirsty lot, they really
enjoyed an entertaining execution (always have done - right up until
public executions were discontinued in the 19th Century there were 
always big crowds at Tyburn, swelling to hundreds of thousands for
the 'turning off' of someone well-known or particularly notorious).

And executions for treason were the most spectacular. Dragged to the
killing ground backwards on a hurdle, partially strangled by hanging, 
cut down while alive, castrated and eviscerated and their organs burnt
in front of their eyes while still alive, then quartered and the body pieces
placed on prominent buildings or gates to the city. For men only, of
course;  women traitors were burnt -  it was considered unseemly to
expose their bodies during the cutting phase.

If, as has been reported, Fawkes did manage to break his neck by 
jumping, then it can only have been with the connivance of the 
executioner. Ropes were deliberately kept short so that this couldn't 
happen, but with a large enough bribe.... Had to be careful, though.
There were instances where the crowd rioted when they thought they'd 
been short-changed on the fun and games. And we complain about
violence on TV. Ah, well, O tempora! O mores!

Personally I support the continuance of traditions like Bonfire Night;
these days it's the only way kids have an opportunity to learn any
history at all.

Kneasy