What on Earth is Guy Fawkes Night?

Randall Stephens

I've only been in the UK once during Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night.  I saw plenty of fireworks and bonfires lighting up night skies and scratched my head in wonder about the whole thing. What an interesting, historically odd celebration.

The BBC has this short summary and a video interview (see below) about the fiery fest:

Guy Fawkes night is the annual commemoration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot - when 14 individuals planned to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605.

The BBC's Carol Kirkwood asked bonfire night organiser Graham Callister why we celebrate Guy Fawkes night when it was in fact a plot to maim and kill.

See also this entertaining slide show at ABC News.

Is the celebration in danger of being extinguished?  The worry this year is that the fest has lost its, um, spark.  Halloween may be eclipsing Guy Fawkes Day.  Some down under are saying its time to let go on an "old English grudge." 

What about that grudge and the religious dimension?  Here's a very short report from the Beeb. 

No Person Shall Bee Any Wise Molested: Religious Freedom, Cultural Conflict, and the Moral Role of the State

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A conference planned for October 3 - 6, 2013, in Newport and Providence, Rhode Island, organized by the Newport Historical Society, the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, Salve Regina University, the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom, the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University and the Rhode Island Historical Society to mark the 350th anniversary of the 1663 Rhode Island Charter.

What is religious toleration? What are its functions, effects, and limits in society? How has it manifested (or not) around the world in human history?

The 1663 Rhode Island Charter stipulated that no person "shall bee any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinione in matters of religion." This charter famously ignited the "lively experiment" that both reflected and shaped religious and political developments in the early modern world and has continued to influence global conversations about the role of toleration and religious freedom. The 350th anniversary of this charter provides a timely point of entry into a thoughtful consideration of a far larger set of questions about religious freedom in particular historical and present day contexts.

17th-Century English History Roundup

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James Weeks, "Diggers for victory: 17th-century radicals inspire choral music," Guardian, June 9, 2011

As we wallow in our 21st-century mires of recession, environmental destruction and gluttonous children of a selfish and profoundly unequal society we seem to have no serious intention of reforming, it's salutary to read these bracing words from a distant, more hopeful time. In 1649, as parliament consolidated its triumph in the civil war and Charles I mounted the scaffold, Gerrard Winstanley and his band of True Levellers climbed St George's Hill, near Weybridge in Surrey, and began digging to cultivate the earth for food.>>>

"Nameberry: 12 best virtue names," Kansas City Star, June 13, 2011

In the 17th century, for some of the most puritanical of the Puritans, even biblical and saints' names were not pure enough to bestow on their children, and so they turned instead to words that embodied the Christian virtues. These ranged from extreme phrases like Sorry-for-sin and Search-the-Scriptures (which, understandably, never came into general use) to simpler virtue names like Silence and Salvation.>>>

Antoinette Kelly, "English aristocracy consumed the skulls of Irish killed in battle," Irish Central, May 26, 2011

The skulls of Irish who lost their lives during 16th and 17th century battles were ground up and consumed by the English aristocracy, as it was believed they could cure illnesses and heal wounds.

The claim is made in a new book "Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires", by the British academic Dr Richard Sugg, who is a lecturer at Durham University.>>>


George Webster, "Real 'pirate of the Caribbean' was funded by London elite," CNN World, May 25, 2011

Forget peg-legs, parrots and eye-patches -- the real pirates of the Caribbean were much more complicated.

According to an eye-opening new exhibition near the bank of London's river Thames, a number of Britain's most notorious buccaneers colluded with high-profile politicians and businessmen during the "golden age" of piracy in the 17th century.>>>

Franklin W. Knight, "The fading allure of revolution in the Caribbean," Jamaica Observer, June 8, 2011

WITH all the political agitation throughout the Arab World, there is resurgence in the use of the word revolution to describe the aspirations of the restless ones. But with few exceptions such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Cuba, revolution hardly emerges in the political discourse in the Americas. That is a pity, especially among Caribbean folk. After all, the Caribbean constitutes the region par excellence for revolutionary change. . . .

By the end of the 17th century, the word had passed into all the European vernacular languages. The English parliament used the phrase, "Glorious Revolution" to describe its overthrow of the Catholic King, James II, in 1688 and his replacement by the Dutch Protestant, William III of Orange-Nassau and his English queen, Mary II of England. But monarchical replacement hardly constitutes revolutionary change. This so-called "Glorious Revolution" was more a coup d'état than any profound change, so Jamaicans need not worry about replacing their monarchy with a republic.>>>