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The Gunpowder Plot · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not Your History Class with me
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlwood, History Harlotte and reader of books,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and yes, a bonus episode what Look I Did one.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I have been planning to talk about the Gunpowder Plot
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: for actual years, like I have a list of topics
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and events in people that you know, I'm desperate to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: talk about where I feel like need the right moment.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And I've finally forced myself to write this because I
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: haven't been sleeping well recently and I was like, I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: need to do something, and this is what I did.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And so it's a bonus episode. It's November. It is
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the fifth of November, on day of release, and I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: think it's time for me to quit my jibble jamba
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: in fact you, in fact you, I will, but first
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: we've got to get our source on. Our sources are
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the Book of Days by Robert Chambers, The Fifth of November,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Guy Fox by Harry Hems, Faith and Treason, The Story
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of the Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Fraser, Guy Fox and
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the Gunpowder Plot by Historic Royal Palaces. Queen James by
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Gareth Russell, Strategy and motivation in the Gunpowder Plot by
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Mark Nichols Gunpowder Treason and Scott's by Jenny Wormwald. And
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of course we have our old friends History dot com
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and biography dot com. I sit in comfortably good. Then
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: let's begin remember remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: treason and plot. I know of no reason why the
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. Guy Fox and his
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: companions did the scheme contrive to blow the king in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Parliament all up alive, three score barrels laid below to
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: prove Old England's overthrow. But by God's providence him they
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: catch with a dark lantern lighting, a match, a stick,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and a steak for King James's sake. If you won't
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: give me one, I'll take two, the better for me,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the worse for you. A rope, a rope to hang
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the pope, a pennyworth of cheese to choke him, a
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: pint of beer to wash it down, and a jolly
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: good fire to burn him. Helloa boys, Hello boys, make
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the bells sing, Helloa boys, Helloa boys. God save the king.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Hep hep hurry. So that's a poem from like early speaking.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: There it is like the nineteenth century officially, and it's
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a poem that often most people know the first few
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: lines of and mainly because of the graphic novel and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: subsequent movie V for Vendetta, in which a man in
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: a Guy Fox mask brings down an evil dystopian theocracy.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: There's also that line often referenced by anarchists that the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: last person to enter parliament with honest intentions was Guy Fox. Unfortunately,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: over the years many have forgotten what those intentions were,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: because Guy Fox wasn't just trying to destroy an evil theocracy,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: he was also trying to install one. But before we
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: get into Guy Fox and the gunpowder plot, we need
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: to lip into some context. If you're from the UK
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: or any neighboring lands, then you may be well acquainted
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: with Bonfire Night or Guy Fox Knight, or even just
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Fireworks Night, so called because there would be bonfires and fireworks.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: As you can see, will really good at naming things,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: like the river Avon, which just means river river. That
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: being said, the Sahara Desert is also just desert desert,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: as is Gobi desert, which is desert desert. Like yeah, yeah,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: we just we just name things as we see. A
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: ron sealed diamond cult does exactly what it does in
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the tin. So yes, I don't even know if this
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: is still a thing, because there would be bonfires and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: fireworks and there would also be like effigies and effigy
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: of fox which would be bunned atop the bonfire. And
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: like when when I was wee, and I know this
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: used to be a thing for many people. Is you
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: would make an effigy, like lots of kids would do this,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and it would be like a guy fox type scarecrow,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and you'd go around, usually with a wheelbarrel, because that's
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the easiest thing to transport a body in, I mean
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a effigy, and so you'd dress up in like clothes
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and you would go in being like penny for the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: guy and get people to give you like pennies. And
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: so you collect all these pennies and go down to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the corner shop and spend it all on like handfuls
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of sweets like cola cubes or ooh, I'm trying to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: think of sweets from the sweet shop, lemon drops, the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: other suites from thee all day time. Licorice man, I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: love licorice, red licorice, actual licorice. I actually just sent
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a friend the little care package with stuff in it,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and just for laws, I put in licorice all sorts,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: because I genuinely don't know if that's a thing where
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: they are, and I thought, just for shits and giggles,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: let's send this, because if it's not a thing, they're
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: going to be so disgusted with me. Anyway, Before Bonfile
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Night became a thing, the holiday was originally passed by
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Parliament known as the Thanksgiving Act. The motion, called the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Observance of the Fifth of November Act, decreed that ministers
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: in every cathedral and parish church or usual place for
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: common prayer, shall always, upon the fifth day of November
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: say morning prayer and give unto Almighty God thanks for
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: this most happy deliverance. Basically, it's a church service every
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: year to ensure that no one forget that. An attempt
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to revolt and overthrow the king and government failed and
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: everyone involved was very harshly punished. But why would someone
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: want to blow up the king in parliament? Well, I'm
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: glad you asked, because I'll tell you so. It all
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: starts with King Henry the eighth, because of course it does,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: which I think I discussed this way back in episodes
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I want to say between thirteen and eighteen, which cover
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: these six wives of Henry the Eighth, so like one
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: episode per wife. You see it more in the first
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: couple of episodes in the first couple of wives. And yeah, Henry,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: if you don't know who that is, King of England,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and he believes in the divine right of kings, so
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: he believes that he is sitting upon the throne by
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the determination of God. Right, God has decided that he
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: should be the monarch and must rule. So he's also
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: self obsessed, narcissistic and went off the handle whenever he
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: was told no or in any situation where he did
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: not have full control, just like when he wanted to divorce,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I said divorce when he wanted to annul the marriage
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, because they had
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a daughter and no living sons, like he had illegitimate
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: sons from all of his horn about but no legitimate
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: male heir for the line of succession because the qualifications
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to run a country from the testicles. Catherine's nephew was
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Emperor, and he, along with the pope
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: at the time, did not want the royal marriage annulled.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Because here's the thing as well. Right for Catherine, if
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the marriage was annulled, her daughter with Henry Mary right,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: she would become illegitimate, and she was not having that right.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: But Henry, he really really really really really wanted to
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: shag Anne Boleyn, and he really wanted a legitimate heir.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And Anne Boleyn was not about to knock boots with
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: it all wringing her finger because Anne, I'm cliff notes
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: than this year Anne was evangelical, and I will argue
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: one of the two decent evangelicals in history, the other
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: being abolitionist John Brown. The Catholic Church refuses to annull
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Henry's first marriage, and so he makes a new religion,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a better one with black Jack in Hookers. No, so
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: he makes himself the head of the Anglican Church, which
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: is effectively just Catholicism liked so anyway, this break from
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church and the attempted conversion of the entire
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: country to the Protestant Church of England, of which Henry
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: was now the supreme head of led to decades slash
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: centuries of sectarian tension. Like he was going absolutely wild,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: right ordering Catholic churches and the like to be sacked
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and heretics burned at the stake. So anyone who believed
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: in the religion that they had had their entire life
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and continued to believe in that faith, and anyone who
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: practiced that faith like monks, priests, so on and so forth. Right,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: he is, well, yeah, I say people burned at the stake. Yeah.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And when his Edward the sixth, when he takes the throne,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: guided by his advisers, he continues this religious persecution. Now
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: when Edward croaks it and his older sister Mary the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: first ascends to the throne. Right, Well, Jane was queen
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: for like nine days, Lady Jane Gray, and she was Protestant,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and they're like she's gonna be the next one. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Mary just like rides in. She's like not in, you'l nelly,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And she has such support, like just for being Mary,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: because her mum was super loved by the whole country.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: And again, all this badge happened after the whole you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: religious break. So Mary the first one, she ascends to
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  Speaker 1: the throne, she is super Catholic, and the persecution flips
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the other way. Although I will note that comparatively and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I feel we need to take this on board. She
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: executed way less people during her reign than her father
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: or either of her siblings. Right, she's called bloody Mary,
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  Speaker 1: but she didn't like murder even ratio wise as many
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: people as everybody else. Like, still not cool to burn
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: people at the stake for heresy, but also she did
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: it less than the rest, like m So next the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: next one in line. Because Mary dies without an heir,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: she doesn't have any children, so her younger sister, Queen
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth the first. She's Protestant, and so the scales tip again,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: and her response to the growing religious divide in England
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: is to introduce the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which meant that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: anyone appointed to an official position, either in church or
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  Speaker 1: public office, had to swear allegiance to the monarch as
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the head of the church and state. So basically, if
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: you wanted to have any job of importance, any standing,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: you would have to swear, basically publicly swear that you
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: believed that the monarch was the head of the church.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: And so you're basically announcing that you're Protestant effectively, right,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: And anyone who was Catholic would then not have these
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: same opportunities or have those same powers. So it basically
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: creates this divide, not just not just for religious reasons,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: but it also affects class because it means that people
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: lose authority and lose power. So the penalty for not
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: swearing Fieldy were harsh. They were finds if you refused,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and repeat offenders were in prison or this may shock
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: you executed. And so English Catholics they struggled in the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: society with Catholicism becoming more and more marginalized, and those
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: practicing Catholicism they shrunk in numbers, and this sort of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: created little pockets and places. So the areas in which
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Catholicism was being practiced was mainly in remote areas out
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: with London, with many priests and laymen practicing their religion
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: in secret because you know, punishment death, so much death
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: like that was on the cards for you, like and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: so many Catholics they were optimistic, I'm going to say,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and they believed that when King James the sixth of Scotland,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: first of England, when he sat upon the English throne,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: that he he would be more lenient towards the Catholic minority.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons like this was like a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: concept for a lot of people was because his mother
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: was Mary, Queen of Scott's, who was Catholic, and so
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: it was assumed by a lot of the English Catholics
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that he would be more benevolent. Right, however, right, if
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you've listened to any tale in which James has been mentioned,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: we all know that leniency is not something he's known for.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Like the man didn't do things by halves. He personally
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: tried women for witchcraft because the sea was rocky. He
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: commissioned Bible fan fiction and had it published, and he
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: dissolved parliament for not being nice to his boyfriend twice
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: see throughout Elizabeth the first Reign. The execution of Catholic
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: priests was common, like very common, and James had written
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that he wished for priests to be exiled instead of executed,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Like he writes this letter and effectively says that I
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: would like them to be sent away with both their
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: head and their body. So like, let's not cut off
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: their heads, you know, let's send them away, and that
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: is better than murder, you know, it's like banishment or murder.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: These are options, and so yeah, people were optimistic, they're thinking, oh,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: he's like tread in the water. He's gonna be, you know,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: less murderous. And this was already good. But then to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: add on top of that, after his coronation in July
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: sixteen oh three, James said that he would pardon the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Fintains against recusance. So recusants are those who would not
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: recognize the monarch as the head of the church. So
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: he was going to pardon any finds for a full year. However,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: that lasted a couple of months, well seven months actually,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and in February sixteen oh four, James makes a public
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: declaration that he has and this is a quote, an
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: utter detestation of Catholicism. Yep, so let me make that
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: more Scottish, an under detestation of Catholicism. This is swiftly
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: followed by a repeal of the order of pardoning of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the recusant fins and after religious tolerance being snatched away,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: after being dangled in front of them, Unsurprisingly, the Catholics
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: are a bit ticked off. And when I say ticked off,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: what I mean is the British Catholics were pissed. They
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: had spent so long, nearly half a century, suffering religious persecution,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and here they were deceived by the very king that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: they had placed their faith in. This lay their faith
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: in God and not monarchies. Okay, I could n't help myself,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: but this betrayal led to more shuffling back into the dark,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: praying in secret and hiding their religion, at least for
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the mature. But like many groups suffering from years of oppression,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a splinter group forms and they have decided that enough
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: is enough. On the twentieth of May sixteen oh four,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: a group of men meet at a pub and they
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: share a table at the Duck and Drake in in London.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: This group of men were determined to make a change
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: and take matters into their own hands. The instigator of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: this group was Robert Catesby, a Catholic fanatic. And that's
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: not really surprising when we see that it's over and
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: over again, right when marginalized communities are victims of oppression.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: While some cower went back into a corner, others attack,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: like they go straight for the jugular. Katsby is one
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: of those people, and like, remember this is action reaction,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: This is a response. This just didn't happen in nowhere,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Like this is a group of people who have decided
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that this is the only course of action left. And
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: you'll see this happen over and over again when the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: boot is on the neck, like what do you do?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: So Robert Katsby, he's the charismatic radical ringleader who had
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: seen his father persecuted under Elizabeth the I's government, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Katsby himself had been imprisoned and fined for joining the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: uprising of Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex. Now
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: after being released like mean, I mean, he doesn't even
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: hide what he's trying to do. He's just very openly
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: going fuck you. So like after he's released, he promoted
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a Spanish invasion of England, which shockingly put him in
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: prison again. So he's back in the clink in sixteen
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: oh three, which is just before Queen Elizabeth the First's death,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and it's here that he conceived the plot to destroy
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: not only the king but the government too by placing
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: gunpowder under the Parliament building and blowing it up. Was
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: it because it was a convenient way to kill many
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: at once, or was it maybe a nod to the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: death of James's father, Lord Darnley, Whom's to say Kidsby's
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: second in command was his cousin Thomas Winter, who was
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: initially reluctant to join this plot, was introduced to this
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: plan by a crazy, random happenstance. Upon visiting his cousin
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: in Lambeth. He had inadvertently walked in on a meeting
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: with another conspirator, John Right. Sometimes you'll see John's name
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: written as Jack, And that's because Jack is a nickname
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: for John. Like the visit this happens, Okay, It's like
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Harry is how you pronounce Henry? Like it's a very
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: very weird thing. Names the English language, Does it make sense? No,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that's because English is four languages in a trench go
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: following rules of some Germanic languages and other like Latin
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: in French and other ones. Na Thomas Wonta. He was apprehensive.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: He was apprehensive that such an extreme would have incredibly
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: terrible repercussions if the plot failed, and as a result,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: British Catholics would be further persecuted. He's like, this is
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: a good plan. I'm not saying it's not a good plan.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, have we considered the possibility of things
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: going awry and everyone suffering. I just want to I
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: just want to float the idea. So he is. He
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: is a little bit catie to begin with, but his
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: cousin's charm won him over, and within a few weeks
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Thomas Winder was setting sail to Spain in the hope
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of recruiting aid for this zealous cause. The Spanish, however,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: politely declined to acquiesce with their requests. But over there
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: he did meet someone who would aid in the plot,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a soldier named Guido Fox, who will get back to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: in a moment, John who was also sitting at the table,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: John Wright. He was a swordsman who had actually gone
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to school with Guy Fox in York. He along with
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: his brother Christopher, who would join the plot later, were
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: imprisoned for their involvement in the Earl of Essex rebellion
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: as well. So it's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon here,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Like they're all connected through like one way or the other.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: And they're all Catholic, which I feel like is the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: important part here as well. So the fifth and final
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: man at the table was Thomas Percy, who was John
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Wright's brother in law. Like I said, they're all connected.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Percy is an interesting one. His second cousin, once removed,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, and he
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: served the Earl in the Law countries, the Low Countries.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It's okay, geography is political, it's not actually geographical, especially
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about countries. So the Low Countries at
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: this point basically is round about Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: so aroundabout there. So he's selling the Earl down in
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the Low Countries, and he's running communications between the Earl
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and King James the sixth of Scotland. So like before
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: he was actually on the English throne. So he's got
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: this connection to these people. He's known and he's respected.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Now some of these people are like secretly Catholic and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: others are very blatantly Catholic. Now Guy Fox the one
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: that everyone knows the name of and knows very little about.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: He was born around April and fifteen seventy to Edward
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and Edith Fox in Stonegate in York. He was the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: second of four children that the couple had together. He
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: had an older sister who passed away and he would
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: go on to have two younger sisters, so Edward he
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: was a church lawyer and a staunch Protestant. Meanwhile, Edith's
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: family were secret Catholics. So when Edward dies and Edward
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: is a relatively decent man of means, he's a loyal
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and he's like super Protestant. So for a while Edith
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: is doing well, She's well taken care of, you know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: all of the inheritance, all of the lands. It goes
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: to the oldest son, so it goes to Guy. But
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: because she's his mother and he's only eight, she's she's
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: doing okay for a while. So over the next few
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: years things are, things are fine. But the actually Edith
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: remarries and she makes the very deliberate decision to marry
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the Catholic Diana's Bainbridge of Harrogate. So it's a few
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: years later. I think he's like twelve when she remarries,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: which I think is fairly close to him becoming man
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: age back in the day. Now he's lived this life,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: he's lived with his mother and now she's remarried this
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Catholic man, and so Guy Fox he conferts to Catholicism
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: when his mother remarried, and he ends up going to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Saint Peter's School, in York, and this is governed by
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a man who had spent twenty years in prison for Recusancay.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: And like other peoples in this school, like it was
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a very Catholic school, Like other peoples would go on
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to become priests, many of whom would be executed during
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth's reign. And like he saw suffering in his community
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: growing up. He saw anyone who was, you know, a recusant,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: or anyone who was harboring priests, like hiding them for
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: their safety. Like he watched his pregnant neighbor become pressed
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: to death, like he watched the stones crush her body
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: while she was pregnant, because this didn't matter. And and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like this is a time as well, like sidebar where
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you know, the quickening would have had to occur, which
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: basically means you had to like be obviously pregnant, you know,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: past that like three month mark, because otherwise they wouldn't
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: believe it. It's like a whole thing. Now. When Guy
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: leaves school, he you know, he tries to get on
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: with his life, and he ends up working for both
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Viscount Montague's, the first and the second. The older one
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't really like him. The second one thinks he's fighting,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: but eventually he's like, fuck this for a game of soldiers,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: and he decides he wants to get away. He wants
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to get away, he wants to fly away. Well sale,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: he wants to sail away. Because by the time he's
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: twenty one, he decides to sell the lands that he
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: has inherited from his father and bugger off to the continent.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So he goes to Spain and he joined the military
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: of Catholic Spain, fighting against the new Dutch Republic in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the Eight Years' War. Bear in mind, the Spanish Armada
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: was only five years previous, and so Spain and England
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: they were still at war, and he's gone over there
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to fight for the Spanish. So he fought for Spain
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: for three years as an Alpharez, and by all accounts
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: he was a good and very zealous like super Catholic.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So when Thomas Windell came looking for aid, Guido as
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: he was then called, because that was now his Spanish name,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: he was ready for action. And so as the five
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: men agreed to this plot in this Duck and Drake
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: in they passed a small prayer book to one another,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and each of them swore upon it. In the next room,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: a priest was holding a secret Sunday Catholic Mass, and
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: so the men took Holy Communion and took the sacrament
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to be a sign that God was on their side.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: They ran a mission from God. Each man at the table,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the Duck and Drake in the very fashionable strand in London.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Each one had their own task to help the plan progress,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: but it was really Thomas Percy's promotion that would get
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the ball rolling. In June of sixteen oh four, Thomas
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Percy was given the title of gentleman pensioner, which doesn't
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: mean that he's some fancy old fellow politely offering everyone
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: a silk handkerchief or a weatherer's original. No. This put
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: him in the prime position of being a bodyguard for
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the Earl of Northumberland. As one of the Earl's fifty
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: or so bodyguards. This gave Thomas Percy a perfectly valid
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: reason to found himself a permanent address in the city
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: of London, with a fixed abode in the nation's capital.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: The conspiring Catholics now had a base of operations, and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Thomas Percy of some standing, little standing, but some as
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: a bodyguard to the earl. Now, what kind of man
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: of some little bit some standing would not have a servant?
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Like everybody had a servant, Like like you'd have to
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: be a servant to not have a servant, Like that's
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: why people collected orphans. They're like they're really good at
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: scrubbing corners and sleeping chimneys. So he hires Thomas Percy.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: He hires Guy Fox to be his servant, although he
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: does it under a fake name. They're they're you know,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: and and what alias did this seasoned soldier provide? John Johnson? Okay,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's about as believable as like Jan's boyfriend
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: George Tropicana. Like that sounds like a name that you
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: make up, like under pressure, or like what's your name
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: John Johnson? Like that's not a name that you just
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: think long and hard about, Like what is a reasonable
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: logical name John Johnson? Like John Smith would have been better,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: like John Smith, although they would have been like what
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: are you a smith of? But yeah, wow, wow, A
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: funny thing about the name John Smith is like years
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: ago because John Smith is seen as such a fake name.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Because okay, so in the UK there are side sidebar.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: In the UK, there are common surnames. The three most
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: common surnames I know it used to be Smith, Jones,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and Brown, like those were the top three. I think
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: they sort of wiggled a little now, But for a
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: long time, like Smith, Jones, and Around were the most
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: common sun names. And these were so common that if
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: you were filling out a form on the Internet and
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: you put in the name John Smith, it would not
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: accept you, like, it would not accept your name, so
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: you would have to be like John J. Smith or
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Johnny Smith, like, you would have to change it in
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: some way because a lot of the forms would just
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: assume you're using an alias, a fake name, and John
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Smith for a while became like a known alias that
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: people would use. But yes, the dastard, lake clever name
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: John Johnson. Now, now I am making fun of this
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: a bit, but it does have like a hint of
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: like when Lucille fell Lassa changed her name to Joan Crawford, right,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Lucille to Joan. Okay, now that I'm dismissing any John's
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: out there. I'm sure you're lovely, but you know so
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: it was all about making your sound more normal. And
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: I suppose if your name is Guido Fox, you're like, yeah,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: John Johnson seems like a perfectly reasonable English name. So there,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: over the next eight months they are recruiting, they are planning,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: and they are saving their ducats like they are saving
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: money because by March in sixteen oh five, the crew
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: had managed to accrue just enough cash to lease a
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: storage seller in the undercroft well. It was conveniently located.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: One it was a short distance from Thomas Percy's home,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and two it was directly underneath the Palace of Westminster.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: So you may be wondering, delicious friend, but how all right,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: so Westminster now is quite different to Westminster. Then they've
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: definitely buffed up the security a wee bit. But I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: mean that being said, they do still have the underground
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: tunnel which leads from Parliament to the pub right, the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: not so secret tunnel that we all know about, but
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: we're not allowed to use because we're not members of Parliament. No, anyway,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: back in the seventeenth century, it wasn't just like the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: House of Parliament, no, no, no, no. Now, it was
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: a collection of taverns, shops and homes like there were
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: private apartments there, like it was all like businesses and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: shops and loads of stuff was happening there, and so
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: underneath in the undercroft there were loads of like sellers
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: and these were being rented out for like storage solutions.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: So because of where they were located, it would have
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: been mighty pricey to rent in the undercroft, but it
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: was not impossible. And a respectable man who works for
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: another respectable man, he hired a cellar for storage which
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: his servant will keep stocked up. Nothing suspicious or untoward
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: here at all, And yes, John Johnson then spends the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: next four months stocking the cellar up with barrels and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: barrels of gunpowder, thirty six barrels in total, right, carefully
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: hidden under firewood. So they've just got these like bundles
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: of firewood and they've got the barrels just like hidden
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: underneath the flamma object. But anyway, so basically they managed
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: to acquire twenty barrels to begin with, so like between
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: March and May they basically have thirty barrels, and then
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: they get sixteen more, so they're getting ready for July.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: So you've got thirty six barrels in total, carefully hidden
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: under all this like bundles of firewood. Because Parliament was
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: supposed to go back into session in July, but gosh
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: darn it, would you believe it? That pesky plague came
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: back and it pushed everything back a few months, and
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: so a new data set the fifth of November. So
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: during this time, because there wasn't really a lot to do,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: and in the summer, the king's out hunting and doing
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: all his like stuff, hanging out with his boyfriend, you
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: know how it is, so so Fox, sorry Johnson, he
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: left the country for the summer, like he heads off somewhere.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: We don't know where he went. We know he left,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: we know he came back. And when he returns, he
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: realizes that like the gunpowder, because he checks on it
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: because he's a soldier who's used to gunpowder and he's
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: not a fucking idiot, And so he goes in there
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: and he realizes along with he's with someone else, with
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: another one of the conspirators, and they realize that some
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: of the gunpowder has rotted. And now we're like they
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: have acquired this gunpowder by not legal means, like they
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: have like some of it's come off the back of
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a car. They've done a back alley dealer with somebody.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's not surprising that some of this stuff
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't up to snuff, and so they end up having
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: to replace like the barrels of gunpowder. So they end
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: up having to like smuggle in more because gunpowder, fun fact, decays.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Did you know that gunpowder can decay? It can, So,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I mean other people probably know this, but I don't
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time around gunpowder specifically. Yeah, unless
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: you include sparklers, like, because gunpowder the same material as
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: chemical or whatever it is, it's used in sparklers, and
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: so legally, like a firework, you cannot take a sparkler
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: on a plane. Now, I have never been silly enough
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to try and take a sparkler on a plane, but
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I do know someone who did try, and they were
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: going through security at the sidebar. They were going through
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: security at the airport, and they were like, you can
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: take this explosive item on the plane in your hand
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: luggage by the way, and they're like what, They're like, no, no, no, no, no,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: so yes. So Parliament is due to return on the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: fifth of November. It's going to go back into session.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: It's going to be the opening of Parliament and everyone
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: has a role to play and they now had a
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: fully fledged plan. Guy Fox was to light a fuse
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: to set off the thirty six barrels of gunpowder on
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the fifth of November when Parliament was in session or
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: like the whole opening thing, and like this would be
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: attended by not only King James but his son and
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: heir Charles, which for the record, they knew, all right,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: they knew that he was going to be there, and
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: they're well aware that a child prince was going to
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: be in attendance and they were going to blow it up.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: So Guido, you know, he was there to ignite the fuse.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Then he was supposed to flee across the Thames River
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: and abscond to the continent to alert European Catholic leaders
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of the deed. Meanwhile, Robert Keatsby and the followers he
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: amassed would start a rebellion up in the Midlands, the
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: purpose of which was to kidnap Princess Elizabeth, King James's daughter, right,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: the plan was to make her the Catholic monarch of
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: England and Scotland too, I guess, and so a Catholic
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: ruled regime would begin. And so the plan was to
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: basically mold her into the perfect Catholic queen. The idea
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: as well was to have the Earl of Northumberland act
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: as her regent until she became of age, after which
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: they would marry her to a very very super duper
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Catholic man, maybe from another nation, maybe from the home nation,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: not really relevant, just as long as he was Catholic,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: and they were going to because Robert Catesby, he was fanatical,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: he was severe in his beliefs, and so he wanted
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: to do to Protestant people what had been happening to Catholics,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: which is not an appropriate way to rule a country,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: like just because someone's a different religion to you, even
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: though Anglicanism and Catholicism or goodness, their brother and sister,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: you know, they're not twins, but they're siblings, I mean
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: cousins at a push, but like they're very close. And anyway,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: sectarianism and other kind of religious you know, abuse, it's
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, and punishing people because they follow a particular
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: faith is shitty really, but yes, what they wanted to
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: do was put into power a Catholic monarch that they
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: could control and would basically reverse, you know, everything that
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: happened over the past like half a century effectively. After
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: a year and a half of planning, the gunpowder plot
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: was finally coming to fruition, and they were days away
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: from achieving their goal of a Catholic dominated England. But
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: all their hard work would be snuffed out by a
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: man with cold feet and a letter. On the twenty
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: sixth of October sixteen o five, a letter was delivered
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: to the home of William Parker, Lord Monteagle. It is
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: suspected that the letter was written by one of the conspirers.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: His brother in law, Francis Tresham, Lord mont Eagle, receives
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: this letter ten days before the coup is due to
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: take place. It reads, my Lord, out of the love
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I bear to some of your friends, I have care
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: of your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as tender
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: your life, to devise some excuse to shift your attendants
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: at this parliament. For God and man hath concurred to
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: punish the wickedness of this time, and think not slightly
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: of this advertisement. But retire yourself into your country, where
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: you may expect the event in safety. For though there
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: is no appearance of any stir yet I say they
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament, and yet they
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: shall not see who hurts them. This council is not
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: to be condemned, because it may do you good and
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: can do you no harm. For the danger is passed
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: as soon as you have burnt the letter, and I
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: hope God will give you the goose to make good
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: So that is the Mount Eagle letter, and it basically says,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: don't go, stuff's gonna blow and also burn. After reading now,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Lord Mountago, he is understandingly a bit taken aback by
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: this lets and so just in case, just in case,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: he travels to Whitehall and hands the letter to the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Earl of Salisbury. So like he's like, nope, nope, off
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I go. So instead of doing as the letter suggests,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: he's like, no, I got to I got to tell
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: somebody about this, Like this is why we don't tell
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: men's secrets. They can't hold them, like they just can't
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: hold their water. So the letter goes to the Earl
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: of Salisbury, who then told the Earl of Worcester, and
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: then Henry Howard, the first Earl of Northampton. Right, so
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: he goes through all of these like this letter has
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: been passed from pillar to post and everybody is hearing
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: all about it. Right. Meanwhile, Montego's servant, he sends word
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: back to the Right brothers that they had been betrayed.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: And so for the next ten days, everyone's on edge. Right,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: So word is going here and there, but currently no
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: one has told the king, right, the paranoid convinced everyone
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: is out to get him king. So you've got people being,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you know, worried, like this information is out, how far
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: has it gone? Do they note we're actually going to do,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Like there's a threat? What's the threat? And so they
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: don't know how to trust, they don't know how big
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: of a leak it is, and everyone is in danger.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: So like there was a conversation amongst like the Big Five.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: They were trying to decide like should we worn like
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: this person's relatives, should we try and get people not
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: to go, like let's have them feign an injury or something.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And this other person took matters into their own hands.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: And Thomas wint right, he is absolutely bricking it, and
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: he tries to convince Robert Caatsby to abandon the whole thing,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: but like Caatsby, he is a dog with a bone, right, like,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: he's so close to his goal and there was no
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: way he's given up now. And so on the evening
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: on the fourth of November, still steadfast in their beliefs,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Katsby and John Wright the Swordsman, they rode off to
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the Midlands, ready to kick off the rebellion the very
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: next day. But back in London, cracks were forming because
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: although not originally informed of the letter, King James would
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: know about it by November first, and after going about
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: it for four days, the paranoid king, who was no
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: stranger to attempts on his life, had ordered guards to
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: search the entire Palace of Westminster for anything that could
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: cause the Mount Eagles blow to Parliament. Now because he
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: got this letter in the Tower of London, like, he
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: ends up being locked away because they're like, you had
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: something to do with this, and he's like, I warned people. Now,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: remember there's the sellar in the undercroft being rented by
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Thomas Percy. Like, so they're going through all of these
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: areas and they're going through these old storage units basically
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: in the undercroft, and so the officials they see these
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: bundles and bundles of firewood stacked up hi like all
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the way to the ceiling, and they're like, okay, sure,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like you can rationalize like and bundles of firewood.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: So like it's it's weird, right, it's not it's not usual,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: but it it's fine because you know, it's November. It's cold,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: like by midwinter, it's so cold that the Thames freezes
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: over like back then, not now because we have global warming,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: So like they can rationalize a ridiculous amount of firewood.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: And that's like when they're down there, they see John Johnson,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: who's you know, like dumb be suspicious, dumb beasuspacious, dumb
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: basis spicious, dumb beerri subspecious, dom Basi suspicious. So he's
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: just there and they're like, oh, that's a servant and
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: his you know, master's storage area. Again, perfectly reasonable, okay,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: now because he just looks like a servant, right, he
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't look any which way. I mean, he does have
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: ginger hair and go tea and partly fairly muscly. He's
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: quite robust, which is probably what you want in a
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: servant or a soldier. So it's it's this where they're
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: kind of like, okay, so they leave and then they
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: discover whose storage unit it is, and so they come
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: back later on right, this is nighttime, early hours of
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the morning, right, so well late on November fourth, And
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: so when the officials come back, right when they have
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: copped on that this is Thomas Percy's seller, a man
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: who knows Mount Eagle but also is known to have
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Catholic sympathies, and what do you know? He hal's his servant.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: And they're like hello and loll, what have we got
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: here then? And so they roll a perception check and
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: they noticed that Percy's servant has had a costume change
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: since seeing him earlier. He's now in riding clothes. So like, bit,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: where are you going? Right? He is wearing clothes that's
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: designed for him to get up and go, you know,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: because you would have different clothes like for these specific
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: things back in the day, like there wasn't a huge
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: amount of outfit changes for like certain people, but traveling
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: clothes like for riding, Yeah, yeah, you'd have something very different,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: and it would be very obvious as to what this was.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: So again they've rolled in that twenty and upon this person,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: they have discovered a watch, so clearly he's keeping an
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: eye on the time, and big fuck off matches right
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: hidden in his cloak, and these are long matches, and
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: so they're looking at the matches, and they're looking at
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: the massive piles of wood, and they're thinking fire obviously,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's ticking a while. It's ticking, it's sticking,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: like getting there, and so they decide to actually look
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: through the cellar. So instead of just you know, standing
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: there and going that's a big pile of wood, instead
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: of doing that, they decide, we're going to actually look
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: through some of this and underneath all of these bundles
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of wood, they say that there are barrels and barrels
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: of gunpowder. But like, yeah, it's nighttime. Why why is
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: guy Fox here? Right? It's because he is the only
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: dude in the OG five that has munitions experience, Like
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: he's a soldier. He knows how to blow stuff up,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and so they're human. You know, it's late enough. He's
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: going to light a very very long views, long enough
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: to blow up Parliament at the right moment. But yes,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: by the early hours of the fifth of November, the
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: House of Cards is crashing down. Fox had been nabbed
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: by the authorities, and they had called for the arrest
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: of the man who was renting the settler, Thomas Percy,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: who unbeknownst to them, was already riding to the Midlands
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: to join Catesby, and the remaining in Aspirers, like those
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: who were still in England, a lot of them were
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: just like getting the hell out of Dodge because once
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: news of Guy Fox's arrest came, Yeah, people were worried.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Guy Fox had been caught and the plot had been foiled.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: But when captured, he refused to give his real name
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: or the names of other conspirators. Right, so he claimed
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: the plot was all his own making and showed absolutely
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: no remorse. Right, He's like snitches, get stitches, Okay, I'm
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: keeping my own counsel. And he very calmly told his
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: interrogators that the devil, not God, was to blame for
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: the plot being discovered. And the man is interrogated for
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: nearly two days and said jack shit. This pissed King
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: James off so much, like so much, and so late
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: on November sixth he orders that John Johnson be sent
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: to the Terror of London so that he can, you know,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: have the information tortured out of him basically. Basically, they're
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: like start with gentler tortures and then work your way
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: up to like the bad ones. And we don't know
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the exact tortures he suffered, but he was definitely put
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: on the rack in the white towered dungeons, so likelihood
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: we're talking thumbscrews. Now. I remember being told an account
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: of when I was younger, like being in like primary school,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: national school, elementary level, like young, young, young, young, and
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: they told you about the ways that they were like
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: taking off their fingernails and all of these torture techniques
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: of the time, and what would have been likely used
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: on Guy Foggs. Because that's appropriate to tell children and
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: explains a lot about why I probably watched a lot
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: of horror movies or are used to anyway before I
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: became a big scaredy cat. Now, if I want to
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: watch a horror movie, I need someone to protect me, please.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love horror, but look after me, please,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: and don't make too much fun of me when I
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: jump at the jump scares. So it took one day
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: of torture for John Johnson to break and reveal himself
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: to be Guy Fox. The oath sworn on the Bible
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: at the duck, and Drake was now broken too. As
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: he was being racked, news spread to his comrades in
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the Midlands. They had been betrayed, Fox had been caught
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: and were still the gunpowder never went off Parliament and
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: all those supposed to be in attendance, they were all
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely fine. Now they had options. Do they abandon the idea,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: do they flee, do they seek refuge? What do they
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: do instead of escaping or doing literally anything else. Robert
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Caatspy has a last stand. He tries to get men
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: to rally to his cause, claiming that the king is dead.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately this plan only gavels him about forty men and
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: not really enough to start a rebellion with. And so
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: it is wet and miserable and rainy, and they are sodden,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: and so they end up camping outside whole bush House
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and that's in Staffordshire, and they're like, they're sitting up
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: a bonfire. They're gonna dry themselves out, well, not just them,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: their clothes, and of course they're gunpowder. Spoiler alert. This
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: was not a great plan. This is why they had
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Guido there, guy Fox in charge of the munitions. That's
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: why they put him in charge of the gunpowder because
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: these men, sharing their last remaining brain cell, thought let's
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: dry out the explosive next to this open flame. And yeah,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: needless to say, there was an explosion. And this explosion
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: caused many burns over many people, with one man even
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: being blinded. It also used up a significant portion of
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: their gunpowder, so they had barely enough to defend themselves
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: with Many men were too injured to continue, others deserted,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: and only a few remained with no other course of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: action but to accept their faith. I mean, if you
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: stand for nothing bar what do you fall for? So
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the following morning, at eleven am, over two hundred men,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: led by the High Sheriff of Worcester, Richard Walsh, showed
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: up at hallbush House ready to take on Ktsby and
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: his men the Schottent. It lasted mere minutes. Robert Catesby,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Thomas Percy, John Wright, they were all dead at the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: end of a musket. Thomas Winter took a gunshot wound
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: to the shoulder, but he survived, only to be sent
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: to the Tower of London, alongside Ambrose Rockwood, Robert Kayes,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Guy Fox, John Grant, Everent Digby and Thomas Bates. The
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: men were committed, tried, and sentenced to the Act of
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: high trees in and punishment was for them to be hanged,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: drawn in quartered. Now kerry, you might say, do you
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: mean hung John quartered? And to answer your question, no,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: I mean hanged. On the thirtieth of January sixteen oh six,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Robert Winter, John Grant, Evert, Digby and Thomas Bates were
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: drawn behind a horse through the London streets to Saint
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Paul's churchyard. So the men they were tied to hurdles
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: which are like these wooden panels, and so this is
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: behind horses and they are dragged, right, So that's the
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: drawn part of this. So hanged, drawn, quartered, that's drawn.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: And you're thinking, why is that in the middle. It
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: just sounds better, That's probably why. So they would then
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: be hanged by the neck until almost dead. So they
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: were to hang in such a way that they wouldn't die,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: but they would suffer. While they were still alive. They
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: were to be cut down and so cut from the
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: road and they would be emasculated, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: So the masculation and disembowment, this would happen as they
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: were conscious. So what this means, I'm going to go
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: into deeper details here. This means that they would be
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: like fully conscious, or at least they would make sure
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: that they were alive enough for this to be castrated
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and for the disemboweling. Their abdomen would be cut open
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: and their entrails and organs would be removed, and so
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: this is the part they would typically kill them, and
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: the organs were generally like thrown into a fire for
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: like burning the bad stuff, but also fires meant to
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: be like cleansing and a lot of religions and also
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: for drama. So they would then be decapitated and the body,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: the remaining bits of it would be quartered, so cut
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: into four parts, so that is your quarter. And then
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: the head and the quarters would typically be parboiled and
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: so like. They would often put heads on spikes and
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: display them, but they would often boil them like a
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: wee bit first, so that they would last a bit
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: longer so that you could see, you know, don't be bad,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: or you're headland up in a spike like a warning,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: you know. So this is what happened to them, hanged,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: drawn quartered, and the following day on the thirty first
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: of January sixteen oh six, Ambrose Rockwood, Robert Keyes, Thomas Winter,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: and Guy Fox or to suffer the same fate. Now
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: we only have two surviving confessions of like this whole plot,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: and they are by Thomas Winter and Guy Fox. Now
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Thomas went handwriting, it's like it's consistent until it comes
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: to his signature, and so there's a little bit of
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: wiggle about that. And Guy Fox you can tell that
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: his hands have been damaged when he signs his name
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: a second time, like you can see the difference. So
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: these men, they are drawn by the horse, they are
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: brought to the gallows. And Robert Keyes he didn't wait
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: for the hangman signal, and so he leapt from the gallows.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: But he survived the drop, and so he he was
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: then disembeiled and quartered. Guy Fox, however, a man broken
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: on the rack, who had lived through torture it's like
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: thirty five years old. He jumps from the gallows and
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: he does it in such a way that he does
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: break his neck, saving himself from the agony of the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: torture that would follow. Because they still did those things
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: to his body, but he didn't feel it. Days before
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: these executions. On the twenty third of January sixteen oh six,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving Act would be passed to ensure that no
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: one would forget that the monarchy survived a dangerous plot,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: a dangerous plot by Catholic recusants, and four hundred years
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: later it has turned into an event of celebration with bonfiles, fireworks,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: toffee apples, hot cocoa, and of course sparklers. And this
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: is something I always bring up when I talk about
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: King James, when it comes to things happen in his life, Like,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: you can make up stories about King James, but they're
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: pretty easily verifiable because this is a man who didn't
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: get killed, and we have a holiday about it. Right
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: were he didn't even almost right, There wasn't a touch
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: and goal there was spark wasn't slowly moving down that fuse. No, no,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: no no, It was like kyb washed right away. So
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: when it comes to, oh he did this, you can
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: easily see if he did or not, because he was
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: his best promoter. But it's interesting now how we see
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Guy Fox, Like the image of Guy Fox represents, you know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: anarche rebellion, rebellion against you know, theocracy and capitalism and
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: all of that nature when he was part of a
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: radical group that we're probably going to cause quite quite
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: a dogmatic regime. It was just gonna be with a
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: different person leading it. And something we have to remember
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: is that extreme actions like this, they are born out
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: of oppression, marginalization and abuse. And it's when happens when
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: people feel like they have no other choice, they have
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: no rook to turn, when the system is actively working
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: against them. And that's just something we need to remember.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: And like I said, and I think the last episode,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: I think we need to just be a little bit
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: kinder out there. We just do one good deed. That's
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: your goal for the week, one good deed. And also,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: if you're in London, come and see me perform. I'm
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: going to try and drink some throat quats so I
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: want to make choice. I'll have a voice for London.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: I'm taking an extra day off of work this week
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: for resting purposes. But anyway, I suppose do you want
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: to recommendation? We should do a recommendation time? Why not
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: for reading? I'm going to recommend Smoke Gets in Your
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Eyes by Caitlyn Doughty because it's it's a morbidly funny
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: read and you should we should read it. For watching
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: a Black Hatter, watch Black Hatter. It's a great TV show,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: it's a classic. I'm recommending old things. You're just gonna
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: have to suffer through it because this is a history podcast.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: And for lessening ooh, burning down the House, specifically the
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: Tom Jones Cranberry's version. That is a that's a song.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: If you don't know that, enjoy and yes that that
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: is my recommendations for this bonus episode. Catch me on
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: the socials. And if you want to donate to any
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: of the birthday stuff because it's my birthday month, go
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: do that. If you want to come see me in
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: London on Saturday, get your tickets. There's a few left
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: and I will see you there. And yeah, have a
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: good day evening. If you're going to a guy folk
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: to night, show me your sparkless I can help myself.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to say adios au revoir avedas my friends,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: Bye bye,