Religiously Inspired Terrorism in the 17th. Century

Today is the anniversary of a plot which, if it had suceeded, would have been the worst terrorist attocity in English history. The plan was very simple, to cause an explosion under the House of Lords during the state opening of parliament and kill the monach and most of the English ruling class.

This happened in the year 1605 and the plotters were Catholics angry at the mistreatment of other Catholics in England. They hoped to kill the Protestant King and then start a revolt to put a Catholic back on the English Throne.

At this time it was possible to rent store rooms under the Houses of Parliament in London and one of these was loaded up with gunpowder. In fact there was enough gunpowder to completely destroy the Parliament building and blow out windows in a 1km radius.

But the plotters were betrayed, discovered and tried. Although Robert Catesby was the ringleader it was Guy Fawkes, the explosives expert who is most associated with the plot. He was arrested and questioned by the authourities. Of couse in those days you didn't need to fly a suspect to a secret CIA prison in Romania to torture them, you just sent them to the Tower of London.

After being found guilty the plotters were sentenced to Death by being hung drawn and quartered. This involved hanging somebody until they were nearly dead, then drawing out their intenstines and burning them in front of the condemend man before beheading them a cutting up the body into four parts (presumably to make sure they were really, really dead!)

The idea of the plot was to give greater rights and freedoms to the Catholics in Britain, but instead Catholics were even more pursecuted in the later years.

Every year in Britain, on November the 5th. people light bonfires and fireworks. It is also tradition to make a figure of Guy Fawkes to burn on top of the bonfire. When I was growing up it was my favourite day of the year because I loved watching the fireworks so much and, unlike in Sweden, people don't light fireworks at New Year in the UK.