[HN Gopher] The Gunpowder Plot
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The Gunpowder Plot
Author : datelligence
Score : 43 points
Date : 2021-11-04 19:14 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
| ggm wrote:
| Terry Pratchett wrote a footnote about bonfire night, and safely
| watching fireworks.
| open-source-ux wrote:
| _At the risk of lowering the tone a notch on this subject..._
|
| For anyone who isn't familiar with the Gunpowder Plot, I can't
| resist posting this comedic (but factually accurate) video - the
| basic facts in just 3 minutes. This is from the brilliant BBC
| children's show _Horrible Histories_ :
|
| Guy Fawkes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40UuVVsYtaM
|
| (And if you like that, watch _Protect thy privacy settings!_ also
| featuring Guy Fawkes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/watch/p01g2pt6)
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| This is a long shot, but years ago a friend recited a poem in
| honor of Guy Fawkes day. All I remember of it was that it ended
| with "...and an inch of rope to hang him".
|
| Does anyone recognise this fragment? I'd love to know the full
| version.
| philk10 wrote:
| A rope, a rope to hang the Pope?
|
| - http://www.potw.org/archive/potw405.html
| mig39 wrote:
| Is it "The Fifth of November" ?
|
| Doesn't have that exact line, though.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| November the Fifth is my anniversary, my idea. So I remember my
| anniversary.
| MrWiffles wrote:
| You, sir, are a clever man indeed.
| airstrike wrote:
| A day early, no?
| KMag wrote:
| That depends on your time zone. It's the 5th of November here
| in Thailand.
| airstrike wrote:
| It's 3:30am in Thailand...
| ggm wrote:
| How close to lese majeste is this thread though? different
| royalty, different religion, but criminalised thought crime
| in Thailand?
| wyldfire wrote:
| Not in the UK.
| gigatexal wrote:
| This is one of the best podcasts on the internet. Love it. It's
| got me into history.
| dang wrote:
| A couple past threads, but I feel like there have been others:
|
| _Guy Fawkes night's oddest traditions are due to a 1606 law
| (2014)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15630581 - Nov
| 2017 (51 comments)
|
| _Guy Fawkes Day_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3200117
| - Nov 2011 (4 comments)
| Grazester wrote:
| Bonfire night is still celebrated in one of the towns of the
| commonwealth I am from. Guy Fawkes is dressed up days in
| advance and put on display. The town then gathers and matches
| from end to end(about a 1.5 miles) and then goes to the
| cemetery to burn Guy Fawkes.
|
| There is no mistaking that this is not a celebration of his
| death but his also success in rebellion.
| zeteo wrote:
| English kings flirted on and off with Catholicism throughout the
| 1600s, up to the point where in 1685 the old king converted on
| his deathbed and his successor was an unapologetic Catholic. For
| Protestants during this time it was often difficult to thread the
| needle of being anti-Catholic without appearing disloyal to the
| king.
|
| Constant remembrance of the Gunpowder Plot provided a saving
| grace out of this dilemma. Protestants cared _too much_ about the
| monarch 's life to stop being suspicious about Catholicism,
| regardless of what he might tell them otherwise.
|
| There were strong political reasons to make a lot out of the
| Gunpowder Plot as late as 1745, when a Catholic-led invasion army
| made it most of the way to London.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Here's the strange thing about Guy Fawkes. In 1984, the IRA
| managed to set off a bomb in an attempt to wipe out most of the
| then-Conservative Party government of the UK. They got the timing
| wrong, and had almost no impact on governance although some
| people died and more were injured.
|
| If Nov 5th is celebrated because Guy Fawkes failed, why do we not
| also celebrate October 12th?
|
| If Nov 5th is celebrated because Guy Fawkes tried, why do we not
| also celebrate Oct 12th?
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Fawkes was captured, tortured and then publicly executed. Are
| there any infamous IRA agents?
| ben_w wrote:
| Yes, for various values of infamous, including at least one
| elected MP who was elected while in prison and who then died
| from a hunger strike while still in prison.
|
| I can't speak to who likes/hates who and how much, but the
| murals in Belfast were hard to miss even as a tourist.
|
| https://www.mentalfloss.com/photos/555460/20-militant-
| murals...
| klelatti wrote:
| One theory:
|
| Nov 5th was a failed coup and the state had an interest in
| reminding people of that failure and the consequences for the
| plotters.
|
| Oct 12th was a lapse in the security surrounding the government
| and so the state had no interest in reminding people of that
| failure.
| ogogmad wrote:
| Your mistake is thinking that there's a _because_. People
| originally celebrated Nov 5th because they lived in a period in
| which such things were thought worthy of celebrating. It
| continues to be celebrated only because it 's a long tradition
| now. Celebrating such a thing is considered to be in bad taste
| nowadays, but inertia is inertia.
| klelatti wrote:
| The (recent) justification for continuing to celebrate 5th
| Nov is simply that a plot to blow up parliament was defeated
| in a country that subsequently became a parliamentary
| democracy.
|
| I think we're more sensitive to 'both sides' now. Even so
| blowing up Parliament is still generally seen as a bad thing.
|
| Obviously that's not to condone either the persecution of any
| religious minority at the time or the treatment of the
| plotters.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| My (non uk) friend ask me a simple question.. Is the 5th November
| a celebration of Guy Fawlkes getting captured or a celebration of
| him trying to get rid of the government
|
| I thought everyone/ most UK people would know the real answer and
| after asking around it appears it's not clear cut.
|
| Anecdotically (asking about 8 people from the UK) 5 people
| thought bonfire day was celebrated for Guy Fawlkes being
| captured. (ie killed for trying to burn down parliament) but a
| few (3) of the 5 people I asked where mostly guessing and was not
| really sure.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Common quip in the UK is he was the only man ever to enter
| parliament with honest intentions.
| hcho wrote:
| Former. The latter became a thing after V for Vendetta.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| If Guy Fawkes day had a modern USA equivalent, it would be
| celebrated on September 11, and we would burn Osama bin Laden
| in effigy; the anti-Islamic overtones would be incredibly
| unfortunate, but become more obscure with time.
| klelatti wrote:
| If the question is in the present tense and looks beyond the
| fact that people enjoy fireworks and a bonfire I'd answer
| neither.
|
| It's actually not about Guy Fawkes at all - it's that an
| attempt to destroy Parliament was defeated.
| onion2k wrote:
| I think it varies depending on how much we dislike the current
| government.
| pmyteh wrote:
| The former. The pope was also burned in effigy alongside or in
| place of Guy Fawkes: a celebration of the defeat of the plot
| and the continuation of the protestant succession to the crown.
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(page generated 2021-11-04 23:00 UTC)