Who was Guy Fawkes?

Born: c. April 1570 in York


Died: 31 January 1606 in Westminster, London

Remembered for: Conspiring against James I and VI and planning to blow up the House of Lords. Every year on 5 November people mark the anniversary of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot.

Family: Guy Fawkes’s father, Edward Fawkes, worked for the Church of England, and his mother was named Edith. In 1568, before Guy was born, Edith gave birth to a daughter who died several weeks later. Fawkes had two sisters who lived into adulthood, named Anne and Elizabeth.

Guy Fawkes’s father died when he was a child, and after this his mother remarried. Fawkes’s stepfather was named Dionis Bainbrigge.

His life: The exact date of Guy Fawkes’s birth is unknown, yet there are records that he was baptised on 16 April 1570 at St Michael le Belfrey church in York.

Despite his parents being Protestants, Fawkes’s mother remarried after his father’s death in 1579, and Fawkes became influenced by his stepfather’s Catholic practices. Despite it being a crime to be a Catholic during Elizabeth I’s reign, Fawkes converted to Catholicism during his teenage years.

Fawkes attended St Peter’s School in York. After leaving school, he found a position in the household of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu, and his successor Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu.

In 1592, Fawkes sailed overseas to join the Catholic Spanish army, which was fighting the Protestant Dutch forces over the control of the Netherlands. By 1603, Fawkes had risen through the ranks of the Spanish military and was recommended for a promotion to captain.

It was during his time abroad that Fawkes adopted the Italian name ‘Guido’, and he developed a great knowledge of the use of gunpowder.

In 1603, Fawkes travelled to Spain and petitioned the Catholic king, Philip III, to wage war against England and the new Protestant king, James I and VI. However, Philip declined Fawkes’s petition.

While fighting in Flanders for the Spanish in around 1604, Fawkes met Thomas Wintour, a fellow disgruntled English Catholic. Wintour encouraged Fawkes to join a group of conspirators in a plot to assassinate the king.

For 18 months, Fawkes and 12 others calculated a plan to blow up the House of Lords, kill the king, and replace him with a Catholic alternative. In order to do this, the group transported 36 barrels of gunpowder to the cellar below parliament, and planned to set the gunpowder alight when James I opened parliament on 5 November 1605.

However, the plot was foiled by Robert Cecil – James I’s dedicated minister. On 4 November 1605, Fawkes was caught in the cellar while guarding the gunpowder, and was arrested for his involvement in the plot.

During his imprisonment in the Tower of London, Guy Fawkes was continuously tortured for two days. Finally, Fawkes admitted his involvement in the plot and signed a confession. He signed his name ‘Guido Fawkes’. After his confession, Fawkes apparently remarked that he had collected so much gunpowder in order to “blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains”.

Despite attempting to kill the new king of England, James I apparently praised Fawkes for being dedicated to his cause and for having a “Roman resolution”.

Guy Fawkes was sentenced to death by being hanged, drawn and quartered ­– a typical ‘traitor’s death’ at the time. On 31 January 1606, Fawkes took to the scaffold in Westminster in London. It has been suggested that after the noose had been placed over his head, Fawkes purposely jumped from the scaffold in order to break his neck. By doing this, he avoided being cut down after being hanged and having his organs cut from his body while still alive.

Fawkes’s dead body was cut into quarters and sent to different parts of the country, where they were put on display for the public to see.

The story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot has continued to be told ever since, and in the 19th century it became customary to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes on a bonfire every year on 5 November to mark the failure of the plot.


This article was first published on History Extra in November 2015