Yesterday (November 5) in the U.S. was voting day, but in the U.K. many people lit bonfires and threw in effigies of “the Guy” for Guy Fawkes Day. In fact, our slang word “guy” comes from the person who became the most well-known architect of the Gunpowder Plot. In 1605, Guy Fawkes, a discontent Roman Catholic upset at the Protestant (and also Scottish) ruler of England, joined with several other like-minded men and planted 36 barrels of gunpowder underneath the British Parliament– it was enough to blow up the entire building and others nearby. Some historians argue that the gunpowder had decayed and that the plot would have failed regardless, but this was an event never put to the test because King James found out about it first. The monarch tortured Guy Fawkes and arrested other conspirators, who were condemned to be drawn by horses, hanged, and, before death, have their testicles cut off in public. Guy managed to jump from the gallows before he was dismembered, and so he only endured a broken neck. In future years, many British towns celebrated the successful uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot with annual bonfires each November 5. While today’s celebrations are for fun, that was not always the case. In fact, for decades they were decidedly anti-Catholic. One burning effigy from 1677 was designed to look like the pope, and it was filled with live cats in order to create a screaming sound as it burned . . .
Source(s): See J.A. Sharpe, _Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day_ (Harvard UP, 2005). Expertrain, “10 Things You Never Knew About Guy Fawkes”, Paula Beat on, Nov 3, 2015.
