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The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James I by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious ...
- Overview
- Assembling the conspirators
The Gunpowder Plot was the conspiracy of a group of English Roman Catholics to blow up Parliament and King James I, his queen, and his eldest son on November 5, 1605.
Why did the Gunpowder Plot take place?
The Gunpowder Plot was the result of King James I's refusal to grant more religious toleration to Catholics. The leaders of the plot planned to murder the king, his ministers, and members of Parliament, apparently hoping that the confusion that would follow would provide an opportunity for the English Catholics to take over the country.
What happened to the Gunpowder Plot conspirators?
With the Gunpowder Plot thwarted, Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, and John Wright fled and were killed in Staffordshire. Other conspirators, including Thomas and Robert Winter, Sir Everard Digby, Guy Fawkes, Ambrose Rokewood, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, and Henry Garnet were caught and executed. Francis Tresham died in the Tower of London.
What happened in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot?
Catesby had conceived of the plot as early as May 1603, when he told Percy, in reply to the latter’s declaration of his intention to kill the king, that he was “thinking of a most sure way.” Subsequently, on or about November 1, 1603, Catesby sent a message to his cousin Robert Winter at Huddington, near Worcester, to come to London, but Winter refused. On the arrival of a second urgent summons shortly afterward, he obeyed, and at a house in Lambeth, probably in January 1604, he and John Wright were initiated by Catesby into the plot to blow up Parliament. Before putting this plan into motion, however, it was decided to try a “quiet way” to obtain the repeal of the Penal Laws, a body of laws that essentially criminalized Roman Catholicism. Winter was sent to Flanders to enlist the aid of Juan de Velasco, duke of Frias and constable of Castile, who was conducting the negotiations for a peace between England and Spain. Winter, having secured nothing but vain promises from the constable, returned to England about the end of April, bringing with him Fawkes, a man devoted to the Roman Catholic cause and recommended for undertaking perilous adventures.
Subsequently Catesby, Winter, and Fawkes, along with Percy, who joined the conspiracy in May, met in a house behind St. Clement’s Church. There they swore an oath of secrecy together, heard mass, and took Communion in an adjoining apartment from a priest stated by Fawkes to have been Father John Gerard. Later several other persons were included in the plot, including Winter’s brother Thomas, John Grant, Ambrose Rokewood, Robert Keyes, Sir Everard Digby, Catesby’s cousin Francis Tresham, and Catesby’s servant Thomas Bates. The Jesuits Oswald Tesimond (also known by the alias Father Greenway) and Father Henry Garnet were also cognizant of the plot. On May 24, 1604, a house was hired in Percy’s name adjoining the House of Lords. From the cellar of this house the conspirators proposed to work a mine. They began digging on December 11, 1604, and by about March had gotten halfway through the wall. They then discovered that a vault immediately under the House of Lords was available. This was at once hired by Percy, and 36 barrels of gunpowder (some sources say fewer), amounting to about 1.5 tons (some 1,400 kg), were brought in and concealed under coal and firewood. The preparations being completed in May 1605, the conspirators separated. Fawkes was dispatched to Flanders, where he imparted the plot to Hugh Owen, a Welsh Roman Catholic expatriate whose intrigues in England dated to at least the Ridolfi Plot against Elizabeth I in 1571. Sir Edmund Baynham was sent on a mission to Rome to be on hand when the news of the plot’s success came so that he could win over the pope to the cause of the conspirators.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Nov 9, 2009 · The Gunpowder Plot was a failed attempt by Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby and others to blow up England’s King James I and the British Parliament on November 5, 1605.
In 1605 a group of Catholics plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London with King James I inside and take control of the country. The leader of the Plot was Robert Catesby. The man in...
Mar 29, 2011 · By Bruce Robinson. Last updated 2011-03-29. The failed plot to assassinate James I and the ruling Protestant elite would, however unfairly, taint all English Catholics with treason for centuries...
The Gunpowder Plot was a failed attempt to assassinate King James I of England during the Opening of Parliament in November 1605. The plan was organised by Robert Catesby, a devout English Catholic who hoped to kill the Protestant King James and establish Catholic rule in England.
Sep 19, 2024 · Catesby and his fellow conspirators, including the infamous Guy Fawkes, rented a cellar beneath the House of Lords and stockpiled 36 barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes, a soldier experienced with explosives, was tasked with lighting the fuse. However, their plan was destined to fail.
