Thought for the week
Encouraging and engaging discussion, debate and discourse.
Guy Fawkes: Jacobean terrorist or misunderstood freedom fighter?
Every year the English celebrate the foiling of The Gunpowder Plot. We build bonfires, explode fireworks and burn effigies of the country's most infamous 'plotter'. But what are we really celebrating? More to the point should we be celebrating the avoidance of arson and murder or commiserating the torture off a would be hero? How different might our history be if Fawkes had been successful?
King James I
James ascended to the English throne after the death of the heirless Queen Elizabeth I. A Scottish Protestant James was the first monarch from the House of the Stuarts and the first to rule England and Scotland as one.
Guido (Guy) Fawkes
Fawkes and his co-conspirators were Catholic and unhappy with the way the King was ruling the country. They disagreed with his politics and felt he was treating their religion unfairly. They planned to kill him with gunpowder in early November 1605 but Fawkes was captured in the act, tortured and executed.
Modern Day Celebrations
On the 5th November each year we celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes did not succeed in his plan. Although he is almost a folk hero, he is seen as a wrongdoer and children delight in throwing homemade models of him onto burning fires!
The History bit...
Traitor to the crown or defender of the faith?
Guy Fawkes was planning to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill a King but why would somebody want to risk their life on such a thing? Was Guy Fawkes a terrorist or a freedom fighter?
Watch this brief history of Guy Fawkes to understand his behaviour a little bit better!
The Story of Guy Fawkes
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