Taken from Historic UK at www.historic-uk.com
Sixteenth
century England was a difficult place for anyone who was Catholic. This trend started
with the reign of Henry VIII. Henry VIII, who at one point was devoutly
Catholic, decided to break away from the Catholic Church after the pope refused
to grant him an annulment. This moment in history, along with several other
major factors, brought about the rise of Protestantism and persecution of
Catholics in England for the next century.
After Henry
VIII broke away from the Church, he made himself the head of the English Church
and granted himself a divorce. Henry VIII then married his mistress, Anne
Boleyn, and they had a daughter together, named Elizabeth. After political
turmoil in England, Elizabeth was named queen and attempted to establish a religion
which combined Catholicism and Protestantism.[1]
Due to this event, Mass was made illegal and Catholics were hunted down and persecuted.
Other laws, which fined those who did not attend the religious services
Elizabeth created, were also put into practice. Rebellions broke out against
Elizabeth and eventually one hundred eight Catholics were executed. Of those,
one hundred twenty-three were priests.[2]
Queen Elizabeth
died in 1603 and James VI of Scotland assumed the throne as James I. Many Catholics
were hopeful James would reestablish Roman Catholicism in England, but his
priorities were elsewhere. James wished to form a union with Scotland and spent
most of his time with this endeavor.[3]
Further, James did not withdraw the penal laws Elizabeth had put into place. After
several spoiled plots against the English Crown, James decided to begin to
enforce the laws once again. Some English noblemen were deeply troubled by the
historical persecution in English and decided to take matters into their own
hands. While Guy Fawkes is most notably known for what would become known as
the Gunpowder Plot, the mastermind was Robert Catesby.
Despite the
support for English Catholics in Spain, Catesby felt “that the penal laws were
here to stay, and that Spain had abandoned English Catholics for James.”[4]
This is most likely why Catesby decided to go on with the Gunpowder Plot. Catesby,
along with his conspirators, intended to blow James and the English Parliament
up during the parliamentary session. However, the Christmas Eve 1604 parliament
was delayed until October 1605. Due to these delays, Catesby’s plot was discovered,
and the information was brought to James.
James’s
agents located Fawkes in a cellar, below Parliament, with the gunpowder and
arrested him. He confessed to the crimes but would not name his conspirators.[5]
The spoiled plot was not going to deter Catesby. He and the rest of his conspirators
took up arms against James’s agents and Catesby was killed. The others were either
killed or executed after trial.
Often times,
it can be difficult for modern man to understand the Gunpowder Plot. The simultaneous
death of a king and all the lords of Parliament would have been detrimental to
the English people. However, for Catesby this was a risk he was willing to
take. Catholics had long been persecuted in England and, when he felt all other
resources had been exhausted, he took matters into his own hands. Quite a bit
can be learned from the Gunpower Plot and yet there are still many unanswered
questions. With the information history has provided, one must look through the
eyes of the conspirators before casting judgment on their actions.
[1] John Vidmar, The Catholic
Church Through the Ages: A History, 2nd ed (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist
Press, 2014), 233.
[2] Vidmar, The Catholic
Church Through the Ages, 234.
[3] Simon Adams, “The Gunpowder
Plot,” History Today, Vol 55, 11 (2005), 16.
[4] Adams, “The Gunpowder Plot,”
16.
[5] Will Durant and Ariel
Durant, The History of Civilization, Part VII: The Age of Reason Begins
(New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 141.
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