- Lancelot Andrewes, preaching on the first anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, 5th November 1606 The contemporary Anglican embarrassment regarding the failure of the Gunpowder Plot is all too evident in the silence surrounding the anniversary. A range of factors perhaps contribute to this embarrassment - that it is rooted in the history of England; a desire to appear 'edgy' and thus sympathise with Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators; discomfort with the Royal Supremacy; unease with the historically Protestant nature of the commemoration.A deep irony is present in each of these causes of embarrassment. Anglicanism itself, after all, is rooted in the history of England. Rather than being a cause for embarrassment, such particularity is in the very nature of lived Christian faith - in much the same way that Lutheranism is caught up with a German experience; in the tradition of Scotch Presbyterianism; in Greek and Russian Orthodoxy; and, indeed, in the communion of churches centred around a particular See, the See of Rome.As for appearing edgy by sympathising with the conspirators, Andrewes' words should be heeded - "if it had been done, we had all been undone". Yes, Anglicanism could have disappeared. The Church of Cranmer, Hooker, and Andrewes would have been overthrown, in favour of the imposition of Tridentine Roman Catholicism. Edgy indeed.The same applies for discomfort with the Royal Supremacy. No Royal Supremacy, no national churches in the Anglican tradition. And what about the Protestant nature of the celebrations? Hooker, Andrewes, James I, Laud: each would have been bemused by Anglicans stating they are not Protestant. The heart of the reformed- the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles of Religion, and the Royal Supremacy - defined, in a phrase used by Judith Maltby , the 'Prayer Book Protestantism' that enabled the flourishing of the Anglican tradition.Put simply, the failure of the Gunpowder Plot ensured the survival of Anglicanism. For Anglicans to not want to recognise this might just possibly suggest a chronic lack of confidence in the Anglican story.For Anglicans in the United Kingdom, the failure of the Gunpowder Plot should also have significance because of its place in our national story. (Mindful of the cultural links with the United Kingdom that have influenced many Anglicans elsewhere in the world, that significance also has wider reach.) Andrew Brown has recently commented on how Anglicanism should be a part of our national story:Brown's focus on England should not detract from an understanding of Anglicanism embedded in the national stories of each constituent part of the United Kingdom (albeit with a considerably different context in Scotland). This is where the contemporary Anglican embarrassment concerning the failure of the Gunpowder Plot becomes, frankly, ridiculous. Anglicanism is integral to the story of the Plot. To be precise, the plotters were seeking the destruction of the reformed. However, the social embarrassment of contemporary UK Anglicanism concerning the anniversary results in this pivotal event in our national story - an event which still has considerable popular resonance - being retold and celebrated without any reference to Anglicanism.What is more, the Plot's failure was for the good of the polity in these Islands. In that first Gunpowder Plot sermon, Andrewes celebrated its failure in these terms:Likewise, Jeremy Taylor in his 1638 Gunpowder Plot sermon declared:If the Plot had succeeded, the result would indeed have been "so foule a confusion", condemning these Islands to a religious war almost certainly of greater intensity and bloodletting than the conflict of the 1640s. Why, then, should its failure not be a cause for celebration?Recognising, and giving thanks for, the providential failure of the Gunpowder Plot is a means of ensuring that our national story - a national story with consequences for Anglicans outside the United Kingdom - is told with Anglican Christianity as integral to it, rather than being simply dismissed in a Whiggish, secularist retelling.The interweaving of the Anglican story and a national story is particularly seen in how Anglican political theology responded to the papalist claims caught up in the Gunpowder Plot - that the Roman see had an authority to excommunicate Christian Princes and call on subjects to rebel. Taylor in his 1638 Gunpowder Plot sermon stated:It was a recurring theme in Anglican political theology. G.W.O. Addleshaw has summarised its theological importance:bete-noireThis sanctification of "natural loyalties", seeking to orient them towards the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, has traditionally been a defining feature of Anglicanism, a characteristic both of Anglican political theology and of Anglican political experience in polities outside the United Kingdom. In other words, Anglican reflection on the failure of the Gunpowder Plot is a resource for renewing Anglican political theology in an age of characterised by a searching for renewed foundations for and a renewed grasp of theof our polities amidst the exhaustion of liberalism.In past generations, Anglicans would have been familiar with ' A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used on the Fifth Day of November '. Thanksgiving is an appropriate response for Anglicans on this day. The Anglican story and a national story are caught up together, interweaving, shaping one another, together experiencing grace and providence, together seeking the "rest and quietness" that is the gift to both Church and polity of "the author of peace and lover of concord". This being so, perhaps we can on this day borrow words penned by Malcolm Guite for a different occasion of Thanksgiving: