Acting on an anonymous tip, authorities searched the cellars beneath the Palace of Westminster and found Guy Fawkes alongside enough gunpowder to level the building. The plot, hatched by a group of Catholic conspirators led by Robert Catesby, aimed to assassinate the Protestant king and restore Catholic rule. Fawkes was tortured and executed; the failed conspiracy is still commemorated every year on Bonfire Night.
Robert Catesby's conspiracy was born of desperation. English Catholics had endured decades of persecution, fines, and executions, and hopes that King James I would loosen restrictions had evaporated. Catesby recruited a small band of fellow believers, including Guy Fawkes, a soldier with explosives experience from fighting in the Spanish Netherlands, to rent a cellar directly beneath the House of Lords and pack it with gunpowder ahead of the State Opening of Parliament.
The plot unraveled through an anonymous letter sent to Lord Monteagle, warning him to avoid the opening session. Authorities searched the vaults in the early hours of November 5 and found Fawkes standing watch over 36 barrels of powder, fuses at the ready. Under torture at the Tower of London, he eventually named his co-conspirators, most of whom were killed resisting capture or executed by the gruesome method of hanging, drawing, and quartering.
The failed plot became a founding myth of English Protestant identity. Parliament declared November 5 a day of thanksgiving, and effigies of Fawkes have burned on bonfires across Britain for over four centuries, accompanied by the rhyme: 'Remember, remember, the fifth of November.'
Key people: Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby, James I