5 Reasons the Gunpowder Plot was Silly

As an Englishman, I'm obliged to remember, remember what was nearly our country's very own 5/11 (because we format our dates correctly). When cruel state oppression of Catholics prompted one Guy Fawkes to try and blow up the Houses of Parliament. The actual celebrations here - bonfires, "penny for the Guy" - have largely disappeared and been absorbed into Halloween (thanks, America), but Fawkes himself remains a powerful symbol of... something. Rebellion. Domestic terrorism. I haven't actually seen that film with the masks (thanks again) and I can't help but wonder how far from the truth our collective memory is on the gunpower plot. You're probably aware that Fawkes didn't act alone. What you may not know is that the whole thing was quite tragically misguided. For you see...

1 - THE KING WAS TOLERANT (AS KINGS GO)

Let's just get this out of the way first: King James I was something of a shit. For all his famed intelligence and education, he was obsessed with the idea that witches were out to get him. A self-proclaimed expert, he published extensive essays on the subject and ordered the horrendous torture / execution of at least hundreds of innocents. (Torture was actually illegal under English law at the time, but he somehow got around this on the basis that he'd been King of Scotland before his promotion.)

On the subject of religion, though, he was much more practical. Perhaps shaped by his mother, Mary Queen of Scots (who was strangely a Catholic martyr herself) and having once been kidnapped by Protestants, he came to the English throne with a vague dream of everyone just getting along. He found himself surprised by the relative complexity of the issue - Spain and France were pestering him to allow total freedom for Catholic worship, while his privy council were dead set on further restrictions. (You could hardly blame them, since within their lifetime there had been plot after plot after plot after plot.) Seemingly, it was a headache he could have done without. After another Catholic plot (to kidnap him) was foiled, he pardoned most of the conspirators from the gallows, in what he hoped would be a show of good faith.

To at least a dozen Catholics though, none of this was good enough. He was supposed to be one of their boys, bringing real reform from day one, and he'd let them down. Clearly, he and his family needed to be killed. However...

2 - IT WAS DOOMED FROM THE START

The plot’s “mastermind” (this title will become funnier as we go) was wealthy aristocrat Robert Catesby. By all accounts he had almost magic levels of charisma, boosted by the kind of balls-out confidence only religious faith or a lifetime of privilege can account for. Though raised a Catholic, he wasn’t particularly devout and actually converted to Protestantism, baptising his son as Church of England. He seemed to have a change of heart when his father died; he got back into Catholicism and soon joined the above failed plot to kidnap King James. Remember I said the King was forgiving here? Well, Catesby was still fined a hefty sum for his part, which enraged him.

More to the point, it put him firmly on the radar. Of course it did. Attempted high treason doesn’t just get forgotten - especially in this paranoid, Cold-War-like era. This was a time, again, in which Catholic plots against the kingdom were being discovered all the time. Enter Robert Cecil, the King’s Secretary of State and champion spymaster. He would have been watching him like a hawk. So it's curious at best that Catesby should start meeting regularly with other renowned faces: two other Catholics known from the latest failed plot, and a prominent Catholic minister. Every child knows that if you're caught stealing cookies, you don't go back to the cookie jar the very next day. You certainly don't start an "I Love Stealing Cookies" fan club and enlist your cookie-loving uncle. It's just not feasible that the government wouldn't have had at least a basic idea of what was brewing under their noses.

Many historians even take the view that Cecil had in-depth knowledge from the start. To someone fighting an uphill battle to rally the king against Catholics, it must have seemed like a gift from God. It would have made sense to keep tabs on it for now, and steer the King toward its discovery just in time. Which may have been hard, given that...

3 - THEY WERE NOT SUBTLE

With a team of five (including Fawkes) now assembled, their inside man Thomas Percy rented a room (in his own name) next to Parliament. This required bringing in a sixth, the servant already employed there, because why not? He was a recent Catholic convert known to be desperately in debt. No reason to think he might be on a watchlist. That'll probably be fine.

Catesby's plan had initially been to tunnel from here to Parliament and lay their gunpowder there. Within six weeks of digging, they had already recruited four more people, including Catesby's own servant (but not his servant's servant - did I mention he was wealthy?) who had sussed for himself what they were planning. You'd think this would have been a wake-up call. The digging only stopped, though, when they realised the river was starting to flood them. At this point, the cellar directly underneath the House of Lords became available for rent. Seeing nothing suspicious here, Percy signed up (again in his own name).

Soon, certain of the plotters began to have doubts. This was to be mass-murder on a scale unheard of at the time. Priests were consulted both at home and abroad, who were all shocked and urged them against it (though this didn't help the fact that they were now implicated). Some plotters suggested warning their friends and saving them. Catesby was against this, but did end up dropping strong hints with at least one lord to make his excuses on the day.

The day, by the way, had been moved back, to November 5th - ostensibly due to plague, though it's speculated that Cecil needed more time to gather intel / rope in more conspirators. If so, it had the desired effect, because of course Catesby used the time to recruit three more people. They were running out of money and needed more upper-class backing. (How upper-class? Try Sir Everard Digby of Gayhurst House. Can you even imagine?)

The core plotters now counted 13, which aside from being an unlucky number, puts the chances of further leaks from these nervous Nellies pretty damn high.

Then, on 26 October, William Parker, a baron due to attend the opening, received a letter: the famous "Monteagle Letter". It warned of "a terrible blow". Cryptic indeed. It is still debated who sent this. A popular theory is that it was the final phase of Cecil's masterplan. Parker would show the king, who would use his amazing powers of deduction and order a search. Some think Parker may have written the letter himself, having worked out what was going on but not wanting to implicate himself. (He had been another Catholic involved with the kidnap plot and let off with a fine, and was keen to make amends / some money.) An equally-suggested theory is that one of the plotters sent the letter - specifically Francis Tresham, one of the 3 rich new recruits and the man's brother-in-law. This was certainly Catesby's suspicion.

Oh, that's right. Catesby and the others were well aware a letter of warning had been received, and they still chose to continue. Without even knowing exactly what it said, Catesby decided it was too vague and would probably be ignored. You know, like terrorist threats usually are. After all, who can be bothered with a quick peek in a cellar if it's only their life at stake? Yes...

4 - THEY WERE BULL-HEADED

When he was found with 36 barrels of gunpowder, a fuse and a box of matches, Guy Fawkes must have known the game was up. Which may be why he gave his name as John Johnson. At this point, who cares? He was similarly feckless once brought before the King, telling him outright that he wanted to "blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains". (This boldness impressed the king, though it's possible he was just aroused.) He could only hope his soldier's resolution would resist torture long enough for his friends to escape.

Now, imagine you're one of the other plotters. Your man has been caught red-handed and it's slowly dawning on you just how ham-fisted the whole thing has been. If your name isn't known already, it soon will be. You know full well the gruesome fate that certainly awaits you. Do you...?

A: Ride like bloody hell to France. Fawkes can probably buy you a few days, and the King's horses are only as fast as yours.

B: Ride around still trying to raise a rebellion with anyone who will listen, lying as you please and saying the explosion went without a hitch, making accessories of poor innocents.

C: Raid a goddamn castle for supplies.

D: Hole up in a country house and prepare for a shoot-out.

If you chose A, you're likely not a Seventeenth-Century fop drunk on desperation and confused rage. The plotters of course chose all the other options in turn. It was presumably in the same mindset, then, that they set their wet gunpowder by the fire of the house to dry, ironically resulting in a small explosion which gave severe burns and blinded one of them.

And so it was that this rag-tag rabble of hopeless diehards were found, on November 8th 1605. Catesby, Percy and two others were killed in the shoot-out, and the rest were carted off to stand trial. One of the most devastating terrorist attacks in history had been averted. But you know...

5 - IT WOULDN'T HAVE HELPED THEIR CAUSE ANYWAY

You probably think (as Cecil had) that this whole affair would have seen a drastic rethink in government policy toward Catholics. It certainly would have been the perfect excuse, had the King wanted it, for a crackdown. In truth, not much changed. All the evidence pointed toward 13 lunatics, a handful of priests who strongly condemned their plot (but didn't report it - sadly this too was punished as high treason) and a whole host of Catholics who gave them the finger when asked for help in the days following. When word spread, near enough every Catholic in the country was horrified at what had been attempted in their name. The collective shame and guilt made them even more pacified, resolved to be good citizens and keep their faith private. The King saw this. If anything, he warmed to them more.

But what if they had succeeded? As should be obvious by now, they didn't really have a clear plan going forward. They were going to kidnap the Princess (as you do) and force her to rule as their puppet. The centuries-old, stable, efficient seat of the most powerful nation on earth (and a relatively liberal one to boot) was to be literally blown to dust and replaced with... what, exactly? No one seems sure. It does seem clear that they'd planned a strict, fundamentalist system which would have turned the tables on Protestants. In other words, despite all the romantic notions we tend to have of them now, they weren't looking to end persecution, but merely to reverse it.

This is of course assuming a majority of Catholics were on board with this. Just waiting for a brave band of heroes to smash the doors and lead the way. As we know, this was far from the case. When they rode around telling people the King was dead and the throne up for grabs, they were met with horror. If they'd actually been telling the truth, they'd have soon found themselves running from angry mobs. Whether the ensuing chaos saw a backlash of hate crimes against Catholics or a country brought together by a shared hatred of these terrorists, it would surely have been just a matter of time before they were hunted down and killed. When the dust settled (probably though inauguration of a very young Charles I) we can assume Catholicism would have been seriously struggling. Those who hadn't abandoned their faith through fear or crisis of conscience, would have found themselves persecuted to a much worse degree than before. So the plot's discovery and the plotters' deaths (OK, maybe some much nicer deaths) was actually the best-case scenario right from the start, for this ridiculous endeavour.

So, next November 5th, even if everyone in your neighbourhood is still hungover from their Halloween party and you don't hear any fireworks, do still take a moment to remember, remember these silly, silly sausages and their silly, misguided plan. And the next time you see a Guy Fawkes mask as a social media profile, just know that that person is an even bigger fool than most people realise.

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