The UK Remembers The Gunpowder Plot & Guy Fawkes On Bonfire Night

Find Out The History Of The Gunpowder Plot Of 1605 & Guy Fawkes' Involvement In This More Than 400-Year-Old Tradition

Guy Fawkes in front of the Big Ben tower constructed in 1843 (Credit: Original Artwork by Peter Eric Lang for The Liverpudlian).

Bonfire Night, a date specific to the United Kingdom, remembers The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 when Catholic conspirators, of which Guido Fawkes was a member of the collective of 13, tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in order to kill King James I (The Jacobean Era). The goal for this plot was to aid in restoring a Catholic Monarch to the Throne of England.

'Despite popular belief, Guy Fawkes was not the leader, he was the Member [of the plot] found first'.

After the 16th Century religious Reformations, particularly the 1536 English Reformation under Henry VIII breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church which increased the authority of the Church of England under Protestant ideals. These beliefs were particularly heavily enforced during the reign of Henry VIII's son, Edward VI, though the severity of these later reformations are generally often incorrectly attributed to his father's Henrician Reformation.

The Tudor reign and Jacobean rule was difficult for Catholics as persecution was rife, though this increased further after the failed plot. Robert Catesby, the man in charge of organising the Gunpowder Plot wanted to replace the Protestant King James I with a Catholic Monarch.

Despite popular belief, Guy Fawkes was not the leader, he was the Member found first as his job was to set off the fuse for the 36 barrels in the cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament.

Originally the bonfires were to celebrate the foiled attempt, however, over the centuries it is often commonplace for people to now celebrate the Plotters.