In two weeks time celebrations will reign across England. Flames will cackle at the wood by which they are fueled. Fireworks will soar and light up the night sky. Aluminum foil will blacken around the jacket potatoes housed within. And drinks will most certainly be drunk.
“Remember, remember the Fifth of November” is a phrase well known in the United Kingdom. Over 400 years have passed since the plot to destroy London’s Houses of Parliament was thwarted, yet Guy Fawkes Night (also popularly known as Bonfire, or Fireworks Night) remains a highly celebrated occasion in most of the UK, and even some of its former colonies.
As a Canadian writer living in London, whose awareness of the historical event was limited to that told in the blockbuster film V for Vendetta, I wanted to know more about what drew so many people out of their homes each year to join in the festivities.
So I went to my most obvious source and the person with whom I plan to celebrate the occasion: my Oxford-born girlfriend.
“It’s about Guy Fawkes. He tried to blow up Parliament,” she told me. I agreed, but asked again why it was a celebration and what exactly were people celebrating. “Hm. Don’t know really.”
I asked some friends in London. Nothing. I asked some people sitting in Starbucks as I drank my morning coffee. Nope. I asked the gentleman sitting next to me on the tube. Nada.
And then I came to the conclusion that, like Christmas has become a celebration of gifts and family, like Boxing Day has become a celebration of shops with slashed prices, like Easter has become a celebration of chocolate bunnies and painted eggs; the origins and the purpose of celebrating Guy Fawkes Night has long been forgotten by many (if not most) Londoners.
Guy Fawkes was one of 13 English Catholic conspirators involved in hatching the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5 November, 1605. The Plot was led by Sir Robert Catesby, who was believed to be disappointed and angered when King James turned out to be much less tolerant of religion than his followers had hoped.
Most people today seem to have a general idea of how things unfolded. Fawkes was elected to set 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar directly underneath the House of Lords during the State Opening of the Parliament, killing the King. But an anonymous letter was revealed to authorities and to the King, who ordered the building searched until Fawkes was eventually found patrolling the gunpowder and all the necessary tools to set the building to dust.
On 7 November, Fawkes succumbed to his torturers, revealing the entire plot and all those involved. All 13 were either arrested and executed, or killed resisting their capture.
But does that explain the bonfires, burning effigies, and fireworks? Did Britons love their monarchy so dearly that the foiled plot gave them cause to shoot lights into the air and set stuffed-Fawkes dummies alight, continuing still even four centuries later? Not quite.
The year following the Gunpowder Plot, Parliament passed the Thanksgiving Act, making 5 November an official annual event on which sermons would be given to commemorate the spoiling of the Plot. Coincidentally, this occurred at the same time as the pagan Gaelic festival, Samhain. This overlap is where the flames factor in.
Samhain was celebrated to mark the end of the harvest season, what Gaels called the ending “lighter half”, and the beginning of the “darker half”. They saw the dying crops associated with end of harvest as the time of year when the gap between this world and the “other” was the thinnest, allowing the dead of the otherworld to take life from the living. Bonfires were the most prominent symbol in recognizing the occasion and they were used to cleanse the living.
The Gaels celebrated Samhain in full mask and costume, which they believed might placate the spirits of the otherworld. Turnips were hollowed and carved into faced lanterns. All traditions that eventually would make their way into Christian-celebrated All Hallow’s Day on 1 November and All Hallow’s Eve on 31 October; which has evolved into today’s secular Halloween.
Part of the Samhain celebration was the burning of a masked and costumed dummy that was thrown into the fire. After the Thanksgiving Act passed and Britons celebrated the foiling of Guy Fawkes alongside Samhain, the dummy, dubbed a “guy”, over time became a personification of Guy himself. This gave rise to the UK tradition of holding a bonfire, setting things alight, and watching an effigy of Guy Fawkes slow-roast. The Thanksgiving Act remained law until 1859, but the festive celebrations live on.
So this Guy Fawkes Night when someone coyly remarks, “Remember, remember the Fifth of November,” you should certainly have no reasons as to why, “it should ever be forgot.”
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