Gunpowder Plot, conspiracy to blow up the English Parliament and King James I on Nov. 5, 1605, the day set for the king to open Parliament. It was intended to be the beginning of a great uprising of English Catholics, who were distressed by the increased severity of penal laws against the practice of their religion. The conspirators, who began plotting early in 1604, expanded their number to a point where secrecy was impossible. They included Robert Catesby, John Wright, and Thomas Winter, the originators, Christopher Wright, Robert Winter, Robert Keyes, Guy Fawkes, a soldier who had been serving in Flanders, Thomas Percy, John Grant, Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham, Ambrose Rookwood, and Thomas Bates. Percy hired a cellar under the House of Lords, in which 36 barrels of gunpowder, overlaid with iron bars and firewood, were secretly stored. The conspiracy was brought to light through a mysterious letter received by Lord Monteagle, a brother-in-law of Tresham, on Oct. 26, urging him not to attend Parliament on the opening day. The 1st earl of Salisbury and others, to whom the plot was made known, took steps leading to the discovery of the materials and the arrest of Fawkes as he entered the cellar. Other conspirators, overtaken in flight or seized afterward, were killed outright, imprisoned, or executed. Among those executed was Henry Garnett Garnett or Garnet, Henry (gär`nət), 1555?–1606, English Jesuit.
..... Click the link for more information. , the superior of the English Jesuits, who had known of the conspiracy. While the plot was the work of a small number of men, it provoked hostility against all English Catholics and led to an increase in the harshness of laws against them. Guy Fawkes Day, Nov. 5, is still celebrated in England with fireworks and bonfires, on which effigies of the conspirator are burned.

Bibliography

See J. Gerard, What Was the Gunpowder Plot? (2d ed. 1897); S. R. Gardiner, What the Gunpowder Plot Was (1897, repr. 1971); J. Langdon-Davies, ed., Gunpowder Plot (1964); A. Fraser, Faith and Reason: the Story of the Gunpowder Plot (1996).

Gunpowder Plot

(1605) Conspiracy by English Roman Catholic zealots to blow up Parliament and kill James I. Angered by James's refusal to grant more religious toleration to Catholics, a group of conspirators led by Robert Catesby (1573–1605) recruited Guy Fawkes to their plot. One member warned his brother-in-law Lord Monteagle not to attend Parliament on the appointed day (November 5, 1605), and Monteagle alerted the government. Fawkes was arrested in a rented cellar under the palace at Westminster, where he had concealed 20 barrels of gunpowder. Under torture, he revealed the names of the conspirators, and they were all either killed while resisting arrest or executed in 1606. The plot bitterly intensified Protestant suspicions of Catholics.

Gunpowder Plot

See Fawkes, Guy.

See : Conspiracy

Gunpowder Plot

attempt to blow up the Parliament building; led to the execution of its leader, Guy Fawkes (1605). [Brit. Hist.: EB, IV: 70–71]

See : Failure

Gunpowder Plot

Guy Fawkes’s aborted plan to blow up British House of Commons (1605). [Br. Hist.: NCE, 1165]

See : Rebellion