On 5 November 1605, Guy (or Guido) Fawkes was arrested while guarding kegs of gunpowder placed below Parliament. Was this really a Catholic plot, or was it a frame job to lay blame on the Catholics? Either way, it would become a day in England to celebrate with bonfires and rowdy behavior the discovery of the plot and Parliament’s surviving.
The background is this: Robert Catesby, Thomas Winter, John Wright and Thomas Percy decided to blow up the King on the State opening of Parliament. They were Catholics who hoped this would lead to a Catholic coming back onto the English throne. Their ‘go-to guy’ (quite literally) was Fawkes, who happened to be an explosives expert who had served with the Spanish army in the Netherlands.
The group recruited others sympathetic including Francis Tresham. Alas, Tresham’s brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, was a Member of Parliament, and Tresham sent Monteagle a letter advising him not to attend Parliament on November 5th. (All the conspirators except Tresham were executed.)
Where it gets a bit fishy is with the fact that all supplies of gunpowder were kept in the Tower of London—so how did the conspirators get it without the government knowing? Several smaller plots had also been discovered before this, so the government knew to be alert for such things. Finally, the cellar rented to the conspirators by a close friend of Robert Cecil, who was Chief Minister to James I. All of this leaves many historians thinking that the Gunpowder Plot conspirators were set up by Cecil.
The story goes that Lord Monteagle alerted the authorities and a search of the Houses of Parliament led to the discovery of Guy—or Guido—Fawkes standing guard over the barrels of gunpowder. He was tortured and revealed the names of the conspirators. Catesby and Percy and two others were killed resisting arrest. The others were tried for treason and executed. Another suspicious thing is that the signature on Guy Fawkes’ confession did not match his normal signature, but that could be due to torture. If Cecil wanted to stir up anti-Catholic sentiment, this did it.
Frame job or real conspiracy, the Observance of 5th November Act of 1605 established an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure. By the 1620s, Gunpowder Treason Day on the 5th of November, or Bonfire Night as it was sometimes called, became a day to celebrate.
William III’s birthday happened to fall on 4 November, and William ordered the thanksgiving service for 5 November be amended to include thanks for his “happy arrival” and “the Deliverance of our Church and Nation” (‘our Church’ meaning the Protestant Church of England, of course).
By the 1700s, reports appear of children begging for money for effigies of Guy Fawkes and the Fifth of November gradually became known as Guy Fawkes Day, with a nursery rhyme so that every child might know the date.
Poor Robin’s Almanac in 1677 offers the verse:
Squibs and crackers play.
And bonfires blaze
Turns night to day.
Squibs and crackers being fireworks, and one has to wonder how many fingers got lost on that night.
As recorded in The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain by Ronald Hutton the earliest recorded rhyme with the “remember” phrase is from 1742:
The Fifth of November,
‘Twas Gunpowder Treason Day,
I let off my gun,
And made ‘em all run.
And Stole all their Bonfire away.
This became:
The Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot;
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Eventually, this evolved into the version that just about everyone in England knows:
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him? Burn him!
Celebrations of Guy Fawkes Day carried both into the Regency era, as well as into modern England.
In 1790, The Times notes children beg for “a penny for a guy” with the guy being an effigy to be burned. In 1802, The Times describes, “The great annoyance occasioned to the public by a set of idle fellows … with some horrid figure dressed up as a Guy Faux” were convicted of begging and receiving money, and committed to prison as “idle and disorderly persons”.
The Fifth became an occasion as well to set up a protest, or just have a huge bonfire, fireworks if you could get them, or simply drink a lot and indulge in disorderly conduct.
Observations on Popular Antiquities by John Brand notes in 1813, “It is still customary…for the boys to dress up an image of the infamous conspirator Guy Fawkes, holding in one hand a dark lanthorn, and in the other a bundle of matches, and to carry it about the streets begging money in these words, ‘Pray remember Guy Fawkes!’ In the evening there are bon-fires, and these frightful figures are burnt in the midst of them.”
One of the treats associated with Guy Fawkes Night is bonfire toffee. While the word toffee does not appear in print until 1825—and sometimes shows up as tafia or taffy—treacle, or molasses, was used as far back as the 1600s to make gingerbread, was considered medicinal and good as a laxative, and came into use for sweets. It was also called claggum or clack in Scotland, or losin du in Wales, and for a “sweet” it was actually said to be quite bitter. According to Sugar-Plums and Sherbet: The Prehistory of Sweets, by Laura Mason, bonfire toffee was popular in Yorkshire from about 1830 to 1900. But the main event would continue to be bonfires and fireworks, burning the guy, and an excuse to have a rowdy good time.
Read more about the history of Guy Fawkes Night and its celebration in the Regency era:
https://www.history.com/news/guy-fawkes-day-a-brief-history
https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-stuarts-the-gunpowder-plot
https://janeaustenslondon.com/tag/guy-fawkes-night/
https://georgianera.wordpress.com/tag/guy-fawkes/
I have good memories of Guy Fawkes Night. Sometimes we’d go to the town’s festivities; other times we’d have a local party. The neighborhood children would take a turn making a guy from an old shirt and trousers stuffed with straw from the local horse riding stables. We’d also take turns in having the bonfire and fireworks in our gardens (yards). The traditional food was jacket potatoes baked in foil in the bonfire, parkin (a gingerbread with oatmeal from Northern England), and wassail. Rain didn’t stop the festivities though it made lighting the fire a little harder.
BTW: You probably already know this, but Halloween was not celebrated in England. It’s a Celtic holiday and celebrated in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I have fond memories of that festivity when I lived in a small fishing village in Scotland. It was quite different than that celebrated in the USA. We did dress up “guising” but in order to get a treat (money, candy, cookies, etc.) we had to do something: sing a song, recite a poem, do a dance. We’d then pool money, and play games such as dookin for apples (apples floating in a tub of water and you could only get it by using your mouth), eating buns or doughnuts dangling from strings (no hands again), various games, singing, and sometimes fireworks.