Born a protestant in York but became a Catholic when his widowed mother married a Catholic. A professional soldier, he fought for Spain but when he realised that Spain would not invade Britain and replace the Protestant James I with a Catholic monarchy he joined the conspirators who planned to blow up Parliament on the day it opened, which in 1605 was to be November 5th, much delayed due to an outbreak of plague. At first the conspirators rented a nearby property from where they started digging a tunnel towards Parliament but then a cellar actually under Parliament became available so they, gratefully, rented that, and stocked it with 36 barrels of gunpowder, very nearly a ton. Fawkes was given the job of lighting the fuse.
But someone chose to warn Baron Monteagle who was sympathetic to the Catholic cause and was due to attend the opening of Parliament. The letter-writer was probably Tresham, one of the conspirators and Monteagle's brother-in-law. Monteagle passed the information on to the authorities who initiated a search and on 4th November Fawkes was found in the cellar with the gunpowder. Some of the conspirators died while being held and questioned in the Tower of London, allegedly of natural causes. Those remaining were executed in the usual gruesome fashion, four on 30 January in St Paul's Churchyard and the other four, including Fawkes, the following day in Old Palace Yard, Westminster.
The picture source website tells this story, using pictures at every opportunity.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Guy Fawkes
Commemorated ati
Gunpowder Plot
Monteagle was at dinner when he received the letter so he passed it to a serv...
Other Subjects
Captain Charles Algernon Fryatt
Master mariner. Born Southampton. From Hellfire Corner : Captain of the Great Eastern Railway Company's steamer Brussels, he in utter defiance of the Germans continued to work the Rotterdam-Briti...
War dead, WW1
2 memorials
Elizabeth Pepper
Burnt at the stake in Bow (or possibly Stratford) for her Protestant beliefs.
1 memorial
1 memorial
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Born near Maidstone, son of the poet of the same name. Opposed the marriage of Queen Mary to Phillip of Spain, he marched on London in 1554 with 4,000 men of Kent but, failing, on 6 February, to g...
1 memorial
Agnes George
Burnt at the stake in Bow (or possibly Stratford) for her Protestant beliefs.
1 memorial
Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them