 | Gunpowder Plot - The whole story... |
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Resistance to persecution against practising Catholics in England in the 16th and 17th Century erupted in an outburst of Catholic extremism which came in the form of the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605.
This conspiracy to blow up King James I and the assembled two Houses of Parliament at the State Opening of Parliament was the work of a radical group of Roman Catholic gentry. The plotters hoped to exploit in their attack the widespread anti-Scottish feeling in England aroused by James’s followers and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne.
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| | The seeds of discontent at the treatment of Catholics in England were first sown in the late 1520s during the reign of Henry VIII. Henry, dissatisfied with the Pope's refusal to grant him a divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon, extinguished all papal power in England and made himself head of the Church of England. This followed by the dissolution of the Monasteries under the supervision of Thomas Cromwell further eroded the reach of the Catholic Church within England.
In the unsettled years that followed Henry’s death, England swayed back and forth between the two religions. Henry's successor, his son Edward VI, led the Anglican Church down the path of Protestantism, whereas his sister "Bloody" Mary I attempted to violently restore England to Catholicism through severe Protestant persecution. It was not until Mary’s death and the ascendance of Elizabeth I to the throne in 1558 that the tide was again reversed. |
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The Pope had recently excommunicated Elizabeth, releasing her subjects from their allegiance to her and opening the way for Catholic insurgency against the Queen. Now fearful of Catholic Europe, Elizabeth embarked upon a systematic course of repression and persecution of Catholics within England. This was to ensure that no organised support would come from within her own country for a foreign invasion by the Catholic enemy of Spain.
Catholics in Elizabethan England, only 5 per cent of the population, were subject to many heavy penalties for refusing to change their faith and follow Protestantism, a crime known as recusancy.
In 1587 Elizabeth reluctantly executed her rival Mary Queen of Scots in order to prevent Catholic groups from rallying to her cause. Then a year later the defeat of the Spanish Armada finally broke hopes for an end to persecution of Catholics in England.
The Queen died in 1603 without leaving an eligible heir to the throne. Many hoped that Catholic sympathiser James VI, King of Scotland, who succeeded as James I, would now reverse the harsh policies towards them.
However this was not to be the case, and James I continued the persecution of Catholics in England with new vigour.
Robert Catesby, an engaging and charismatic 32-year-old Warwickshire country gentleman, was a devout Catholic and familiar with the price of faith. His father had been imprisoned for harbouring a priest, and he himself had had to leave university without a degree to avoid taking the Protestant Oath of Supremacy.
His personal magnetism and resolute faith proved crucial in forming a small band of fellow conspirators. He persuaded his young cousin Thomas Wintour, friends John Wright and Thomas Percy, and later friend Robert Keyes to join him in his plot to blow up the new king and overthrow the government, thus returning England to Catholic rule.
In Spain, Wintour had met Guy Fawkes, a Yorkshire born soldier in Spanish service who had been fighting against the protestants in present day Belgium and Holland. Fawkes, a gunpowder specialist, had even changed his name to Guido Fawkes to reflect his allegiances with the Catholic Spanish.
They pledged to inflame a rising in England with Spain providing troops to secure power, but this so-called “Spanish treason” was met with a lukewarm response by the government of Spain who were eager to restore friendly relations with the new regime in England.
Undeterred they continued to plan to smuggle a large quantity of gunpowder under the Parliament building and Percy, a well-connected courtier, was able to rent cellars there without arousing suspicion.
Onwards to Part 2 of 3 |
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