4 November 1605, London, England - On the evening of this day the King’s men searched the empty chamber beneath the House of Lords. They had been tipped-off by an anonymous letter that revealed an explosive plan for the undercroft.
They discovered Guy Fawkes sitting on thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. He planned on setting it off next day at the state opening of Parliament. Had he succeeded, the House of Lords would be rubble, King James would be dead. and The King James Bible would have never been made.
It was part of a larger plot cooked-up by Robert Catesby to make England Papist once again. The explosion was to be followed by a popular revolt in the Midlands. There were eight conspirators. All were caught, hung, drawn, and quartered - except Fawkes.
Fawkes got out of hanging by stumbling off the scaffold and breaking his neck. His dead body was drawn and quartered anyway. They all paid the price of treason. Only Guy Fawkes became famous for it.
Every year England celebrates Guy Fawkes day by hanging him in effigy. He has become a sort of Patron Saint
for feckless rebellion around the world. Occupy Wall Street demonstrators wore masks of Guy Fawkes face as they broke things and harassed innocent passersby.
Many of the demonstrators thought the mask symbolized the drama of rebellion they saw in the 2005 film: V for Vendetta. They were right, but missed the larger connotation.
The film was loosely inspired by the Gunpowder Plot
of 1605. The face on the mask was inspired by the face of Guy Fawkes. The rioting youth didn’t know much about this because they didn’t know much history. Understandable, they were collage educated and confident they knew everything worth knowing.
I quibble. Ignorant or not they were intuitively drawn to the smirk of rebellion; the certain smugness of half-baked ideology.
The mask designed by David Loyd.