Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who was involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He converted to Catholicism and left for mainland Europe, where he fought for Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years’ War. He later met Thomas Wintour, who introduced him to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The authorities were prompted by an anonymous letter to search Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and they found Fawkes guarding the explosives. He confessed to wanting to blow up the House of Lords.
About Guy Fawkes in brief
Guy Fawkes was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who was involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He was born and educated in York; his father died when he was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic. Fawkes converted to Catholicism and left for mainland Europe, where he fought for Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years’ War against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries. He later met Thomas Wintour, who introduced him to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The authorities were prompted by an anonymous letter to search Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and they found Fawkes guarding the explosives. He confessed to wanting to blow up the House of Lords. Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes fell from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of being hanged, drawn and quartered. He became synonymous with the Gunpowder plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in the UK as Guy Fawkes Night since 5 November 1605, when his effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by fireworks. The date of Fawkes’s birth is unknown, but he was baptised in the church of St Michael le Belfrey, York on 16 April. Guy was an uncommon name in England, but may have been popular in York on account of a local notable, Sir Guy Fairfax of Steeton.
Guy’s parents were regular communicants of the Church of England, as were his paternal grandparents; his grandmother, born Ellen Harrington, was the daughter of a prominent merchant, who served as Lord Mayor of York in 1536. In October 1591 Fawkes sold the estate in Clifton in York that he had inherited from his father to fight in the Spanish Armada. Although England was not by then engaged in operations against Spain, only five countries were still at war with the new Dutch Republic and Armada of 1588. In 1598, France and Spain were still engaged in land operations against the Spanish, and until the Peace of Vervins in 1595, England was the only country that was not engaged in the two wars. Guy may have become a Catholic through the Baynbrigge family’s recusist tendencies, and also the Catholic branches of the Pulleyn and Percy families of Scotton, but also from his time at St. Peter’s School in York. After leaving school Fawkes entered the service of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu, who was subsequently dismissed; he was subsequently employed by Anthony 2nd Montagu. At least one source claims that Fawkes had a son, but no contemporary accounts confirm this, but there is no known contemporary accounts of this. He had a daughter named Anne, but the child died aged about seven weeks, in November that year. She bore two more children after Guy: Anne, and Elizabeth. Both were married, in 1599 and 1594 respectively.
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This page is based on the article Guy Fawkes published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
