Re: Guy Fawkes Day (was Halloween)

[James Gilly / Alasdair mac Iain <alasdair.maciain@snet.net>]

Poster: James Gilly / Alasdair mac Iain <alasdair.maciain@snet.net>

At 14:19 22-10-98 -0400, Winifred wrote:
>Actually, Guy Fawkes Day is the 5th of November.  Guy Fawkes (along with
>other Catholics, he's just the most remembered) in an act of terrorism
>motivated by religious persecution, plotted to blow up the houses of
>Parliment in 1605 with gunpowder (The Gunpowder Plot).  He was captured on
>Nov. 4, brought before the Privy Council on Nov. 5th and tortured alot.  He
>was executed on the 31st of January in 1606.  I believe all of this is
>during the reign of James I.  The whole thing is a really intesting bit of
>history.
>
>The holiday commemorates his capture and celebrates his bravery.  The very
>nice secretary at my church (who is a Brit.) tells me that they also do
>fireworks (a big fireworks display is important, along with the bonfires).
>A few years back when my husband and I got married on the 5th of Nov., she
>jokingly told me that we ought to have sparklers at the reception because it
>was Guy Fawkes day.  (We did, but that's another story.)

According to the *EB*, Fawkes was a soldier serving in Spain when he was
enlisted into the plot, the ringleaders of which felt they needed a soldier
who would not be as recognisable as they themselves would be.

Another custom is for kids to make up a Guy Fawkes dummy and wheel it about
in a waggon, begging for "a penny for the Guy."


Alasdair mac Iain
no fireworks in Dunoon, but I'd go for a walk along the Clyde and watch the
fireworks over toward Wemyss Bay....



Laird Alasdair mac Iain of Elderslie
Dun an Leomhain Bhig
Canton of Dragon's Aerie [southeastern CT]
Barony Beyond the Mountain  [northern & southeastern CT]
East Kingdom
-------   -------   -------
Argent, a chevron cotised azure surmounted by a sword and in chief two
mullets sable
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