Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night 5th November each  year.

Guy Fawkes Night is annually held on November 5. It is sometimes known as Bonfire Night and marks the anniversary of the discovery of a plot organized by Catholic conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London in 1605.

Guy Fawkes, the son of a Edward Fawkes, was born in York in 1570 and was brought up as a protestant and baptised in the Church of St. Michael Belfry. His father died when Fawkes was eight in 1578 and his mother lived as a widow for nine years. She re-married in 1587 and both she and Guy Fwakes went to live in the village of Scotton, about 20 miles from York. Here Guy was influenced by his step-father and Guy's converted to Catholicism.

In October 1591 Fawkes sold the family estate in Clifton that he had inherited from his father and travelled to the continent to fight in the Eighty Years War for Catholic Spain against the new Dutch Republic and, from 1595 until the Peace of Vervins in 1598, France.

In May 1604, Guy Fawkes met with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Thomas Wintour at an inn called the Duck and Drake in the Strand district of London, and agreed under oath along with Percy to join the other three in the gunpowder conspiracy.

The idea was to blow up King James, the royal family and the assembled ruling classes of England at the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605.

At least one of the conspirators was concerned about Catholics who would be present at Parliament during the opening and on the evening of 26 October, Lord Monteagle received an anonymous letter warning him to stay away. The letter was shown to King James and the King ordered Sir Thomas Knyvet to search the cellars underneath Parliament, which he did in the early hours of 5 November. (Interestingly one of the plotters was a man called Francis Tresham and Lord Monteagle was his cousin. When arrested he was locked in the Tower of London where he died on December 23rd 1605 and although some suspect he was poisoned, while the official government version of the day was that he died from strangury)  

Fawkes had taken up his station late on the previous night, and Guy Fawkes was found on the night of 4th/5th November 1605 in the cellars under the Palace of Westminster, where Parliament was due to meet.   Inside, the 36 barrels of gunpowder were discovered hidden under piles of firewood and coal

Fawkes was tortured and admitted that he was part of a plot to "blow the Soctsman (James) back to Scotland". On the 7th November, after enduring further totures, Fawkes gave the names of his fellow conspirators. Guy Fawkes was found guilty of treason and on Friday, 31 January 1606, Fawkes, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood and Robert Keyes were taken to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster and hanged, drawn and quartered.

The main players in the gun powder plot conspiracy were John Wright, Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, John Grant, Sir Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham

The fate of the other conspirators like John Wright, Christopher Wright  Catesby and Percy were that they were shot dead at Holbeech House in the Midlands while on the run.

Everard Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant and Thomas Bates were executed on Thursday 30 January 1606.

In celebration of his survival, King James ordered that the people of England should have a great bonfire on the night on 5th November.

Today the 5th November is known as Bonfire Night and throughout the country there are many firework displays and bonfires are lit and the history of the day is remembered by burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes.

Remember remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason

Should ever be forgot.