History Hit By James Travers
When Guy Fawkes was discovered in the vault below the House of Lords on 5 November 1605, the process of uncovering the conspirators who planned to blow up Parliament began.
There was a chaotic week following the discovery, including an abortive rebellion in the Midlands, then came the exhaustive official Investigation in the months and years that followed. The investigation produced so much dense and complex evidence, that it soon fed conspiracy theories involving the government itself.
Here are 10 of the conspirators in theĀ Gunpowder Plot.
1. Guy Fawkes
Guy or Guido Fawkes as he called himself, began as the unknown face of plot, a man who had spent so long abroad in the service of Spain that he was unknown in London.
The image of the cloaked figure with a dark lantern tending his barrels of gunpowder in the vault beneath the Lordsā chamber proved irresistible to artists and gradually made him the symbol of the plot.
He did not devise it, but it suited the governmentās narrative to have a disaffected lone outsider as the face of the plot, rather than a network of conspirators with links to the monarchy itself.
Adopted by the hacktivist group Anonymous, Guido Fawkes has become not just the face of the plot, but of political disaffection itself.
2. Robert Catesby
Widely seen as the brains and charisma behind the plot, Robert Catesby was affectionately known by his many friends among the plotters and the Lords themselves, as āRobinā.
Had his death at the plottersā last stand at Holbeach House in Staffordshire not robbed us of his evidence to the investigation, we might have a tradition of burning Robins in effigy rather than Guys.
Those who did give evidence credited him with devising the plot and with enormous powers of persuasion.
Perhaps, once he was safely dead, those who had survived felt they could use the power of his personality to excuse themselves from any personal responsibility.
3. Thomas Percy
At first, the only evidence Fawkes would give was that he was the servant of Thomas Percy, who had rented the vault under the House of Lords…
