What Is the Truth of the Gunpowder Plot?

The conspiracy in 17th century England has taken on many meanings

On Thursday, May 20, 1604, five Catholic men gathered at a house behind St. Clement’s Inn to rage against the decades of repression suffered by their friends and families, nursing their grievances against the new Protestant king of England, James I.

Earlier, one of them, Robert Catesby, had told them of his desire, which was to strike back against the King, his ministers, and the entire ruling class by blowing up the Houses of Parliament with lit gunpowder they stashed beneath the building. His cousin, Thomas Wintour, had recoiled at the scale of the slaughter and asked whether it was necessary. Catesby had assured him it was, for “the nature of the disease required so sharp a remedy.”

Another conspirator, Thomas Percy, reacted to criticism of the plan with the anguished cry, “Shall we always, gentlemen, talk and never do anything?”

With that, they agreed and took an oath of secrecy, setting themselves on a tragic course that would end in failure when Guy “Guido” Fawkes, another of the core five plotters, was discovered just before midnight on November 4, 1605. Fawkes was standing in a cellar next to 36 barrels of gunpowder that, when lit, could have detonated the House of Lords and, as Fawkes defiantly snarled under interrogation…