On the fifth of November, millions of people all over Britain will be out at night for the country’s annual firework celebration. Some will be at home in the back garden with their families, and others at enormous public events which attract tens of thousands of revellers. Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night, is actually a celebration of one of England’s most dramatic episodes, which took place more than 400 years ago, in the year 1605, during the reign of King James I.
RELIGIOUS CHANGE
The seeds of this episode, however, occurred even earlier, in the time of England’s most famous king, Henry VIII (1491-1547). Henry started to change the official religion of the country from Catholicism to Protestantism, a process continued by his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603). As the seventeenth century began, however, many people in the country were still unhappy with this change. Guy Fawkes was a member of a group of Catholics who planned to assassinate the new king, James I. The idea was to blow up the Houses of Parliament, on November the 5th, 1605, with barrels of gunpowder, when the king was present. Fawkes, however, was discovered just as he was about to light the gunpowder. He and his colleagues were executed for treason.
BONFIRES IN LONDON
The same night of November the 5th, 1605, Londoners reacted to the king’s escape from the ‘Gunpowder Plot’ by lighting bonfires all over the city. An Act of Parliament then designated November the 5th as a day of thanksgiving. A rhymequickly became popular: “Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot.” From about 1650, the anniversary was celebrated with bonfires and fireworks (made with gunpowder), and it became customary to burn an effigy, usually of the Pope.
PENNY FOR THE GUY
In later years, this effigy became a ‘guy’ (a dummy), which children created from old clothes, newspapers, and a mask, with the distinctive features of Guy Fawkes. Children also started asking for “a penny for the guy,” money which they used to buy fireworks. These days, there are public displays of fireworks all over England, some of them, such as the displays in Battersea, Southwark and Blackheath in London, attracting up to 80,000 people.
A PROTEST FIGURE
Guy Fawkes himself recently entered our culture in a second way. The V for Vendetta comic book (1988-89) and film (2006) tells a story set in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic Britain. The title character, the vigilante V, tries to liberate the country wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. In recent years, the mask has been used in protests around the world, in battles for transparency led by the online group Anonymous against the CIA, Visa and PayPal, and on the street, from Madrid’s Indignados to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
