This is the story of what happened to make the 5th of November become so famous in English history. Remember, remember! The 5th of November, The Gunpowder treason and plot; There is no reason Why the Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot! This short story is about Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes, who was part of the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It explains the origins of the English 5th of November celebrations with humorous cartoon-style illustrations to bring the story alive.
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November ... With a narrative that grips the reader like a detective story, Antonia Fraser brings the characters and events of the Gunpowder Plot to life. Dramatically recreating the conditions and motives that surrounded the fateful night of 5 November 1605, she unravels the tangled web of religion and politics that spawned the plot. 'An excellent book which unravels the whole story of the plot' Literary Review 'Told with impressive scholarship and panache ... with a sense of pace and tension worthy of a John le Carré novel' Sunday Telegraph
"This book takes a fresh look at the most famous treason case in English history, a complex tale of treachery, suspicion, rebellion and retribution. [The author] shows how, starting with the most slender of leads, the Jacobean government built up a full picture of the conspiracy and tracked down the guilty men and brought them to justice. The story does not end with the bloody executions of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators in 1606. For the first time in a book on the Gunpowder treason, [the author] investigates in depth the role in the plot played by the ninth earl of Northumberland, seen by many as the plotters' logical choice for a protector of the realm after blast, who was imprisoned in the Tower for sixteen years on suspicion of complicity. By examining the earl's political career in the years around 1605, the author shows how the government investigations, though shedding much light on the plot, never revealed the whole truth. [The author] cuts through the distortions of centuries of political and religious propaganda to explain the real motives of the Gunpowder plotters. [The author] disposes of the 'conspiracy theory, ' which holds that the king's chief minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, framed the conspirators for his own political purposes, and ... sheds considerable light on the workings of early Jacobean government, particularly the privy council. [This book] should appeal to anyone interested in English history, as well as historians and students of seventeenth-century England"--
Bonfire Night, observed annually to memorialize the Gunpowder Plot, is one of England's most festive occasions. Why has the memory of this act of treason and terrorism persisted for 400 years? Sharpe unravels the web of religion and politics that gave rise to the plot, and wittily shows how celebration of that night has changed over the centuries.
Interest in Ben Jonson is higher today than at any time since his death. This new collection offers detailed readings of all the major plays - Volpone, Epicene, The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair - and the poems. It also provides significant insights into the court masques and the later plays which have only recently been rediscovered as genuinely engaging stage pieces.
In England, November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day, when fireworks displays commemorate the shocking moment in 1605 when government authorities uncovered a secret plan to blow up the House of Parliament--and King James I along with it. A group of English Catholics, seeking to unseat the king and reintroduce Catholicism as the state religion, daringly placed in position thiry-six barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the Palace of Wesminster. Their aim was to ignite the gunpowder at the opening of the parliamentary session. Though the charismatic Catholic Robert Catesby was the group's leader, it was the devout Guy Fawkes who emerged as its most famous member, as he was the one who was captured and who revealed under torture the names of his fellow plotters. In the aftermath of their arrests, conditions grew worse for English Catholics, as legal penalties against them were stiffened and public sentiment became rabidly intolerant. In a narrative that reads like a gripping detective story, Antonia Fraser has untangled the web of religion, politics, and personalities that surrounded that fateful night of November 5. And in examining the lengths to which individuals will go for their faith, she finds in this long-ago event a reflection of the religion-inspired terrorism that has produced gunpowder plots of our own time.
Guy Fawkes is amongst the most celebrated figures in English history and Bonfire Night is a remarkably long lived and very English tradition. But why is it that in a modern, multicultural society people still turn out every November to commemorate a planned act of treason and terrorism which was defeated four hundred years ago? Had the Gunpowder Plot succeeded and the Catholics managed to blow up the king, the royal family and Parliament, English history would have been shaped by a terrorist act of unprecedented proportions, shattering in terms of both the damage inflicted and its propaganda value. James Sharpe examines the fateful night of 5 November 1605 and the tangled web of religion and politics which gave rise to the plot. He uncovers how celebration of the event, and of Guy Fawkes, the one gunpowder plotter everyone remembers, has changed over the centuries. Today, although most of the religious connotations have long been ignored, the bonfires remain. The festival created in 1605 by the state and church to commemorate a failed act of Catholic terrorism, now provides an annual raison d'être for the firework industry and an annual source of concern for Britain's cat owners. Every year the crowds gather, the bonfires are lit and the firework displays dazzle again. Interestingly however, the tradition is fast changing and reverting to the pre-Gunpowder Plot festival (now much Americanised) of Halloween.
