Guy Fawkes + Gunpowder - 400 years = Bonfire Night

Must backtrack. Lewes… a Protestant stronghold for hundreds of years. It is now the largest Guy Fawkes Day (Bonfire night) celebration in the world. Guy Fawkes was a strong Catholic who 400 years ago, tried to blow up the Protestant King. It was during the period of ‘are we Catholic, are we not?’ (…obviously Guy’s answer was heck ya!)

On 5 November 1605, Guy Fawkes was found in his rented apartment below the House of Lords (seat of English parliament in London) with approximately 35 barrels of gunpowder (hence the name Gunpowder Plot).

Interesting sidenote – in a remote location they did a complete re-enactment this year and aired prior to Bonfire night, merely to see what would have happened had he not been discovered. They constructed a building comparable to the House of Lords and filled it with lifesize dolls representing the members of parliament. Not only did they find the king’s head miles away from the blast, but it completely shattered the 2 metre wide cement walls. They concluded that 1 barrel of gunpowder would have seriously injured those present but there were 35 found that night.

So, in typical polite English fashion, the people screamed bloody Mary and hung Guy & his co-conspirators without hesitation, then went home for tea & crumpets. In the 400 years since, 5 November has always been marked as a symbol of loyalty to the English crown and Protestant faith (‘remember, remember the 5th of November’). Lewes, a small town 30 or 40 miles southeast of London saw much persecution of Protestants (now called martyrs versus those dodgy Catholic hellians) so has through the generations become the focal point of Bonfire Night festivities. There are upwards of 30 Bonfire societies (most in the East Sussex area but are spread through Europe) which have the sole existence of carrying torches through the streets while dressed up as Zulu warriors, Indians, Victorians, etc one night each year.

Bee-zar n’est pas?