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It is just after midnight, on the 5th of November, 1605,
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in the cellars beneath the Houses of Parliament in London.
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A man in a cloak is standing beside a pile
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of firewood, a lantern in one hand, a slow match
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in the other. Behind the firewood, hidden under coal, are
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thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, enough to reduce the entire building
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to rubble. Above him, in a few hours, the King
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of England will take his seat, with his queens, his
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eldest son, and every lord and bishop in the kingdom.
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One spark, and they would all be gone. But the
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cellar door opens, soldiers step in, and the man with
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the lantern gives a false name. John Johnson, he says.
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It is the most famous lie in English history, and
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it is told by the most famous traitor in English history,
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Guy Fawkes.
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36 Barrels Under Parliament and the Letter That Stopped Them
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That is our story today. A plot to blow up
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a king, his parliament, and his government in a single
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blast and replace them with a nine-year-old girl. Who planned it?
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How did it come so close to success? And why
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do the English still burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes
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more than 400 years later?
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To understand the plot, we have to understand the England
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of 1605. Two years earlier, Elizabeth I had died and
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and James VI of Scotland had become James I of England.
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English Catholics, who had been persecuted for decades under Elizabeth,
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had hoped the new king would bring tolerance. He did not.
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James kept the fines and the laws against them, and
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many Catholics felt betrayed. Among them was a charismatic gentleman
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from Warwickshire named Robert Catesby. Catesby was the true leader
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of the plot, not folks. He was well-connected, devout, and
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convinced that peaceful change was impossible. If the king would
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not give Catholics their freedom, Catesby reasoned, then the king,
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and the government that enforced the laws against them, would
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have to be removed, all at once.
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In the spring of 1604, Catesby gathered his first conspirators,
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Thomas Wintour, his cousin, John Wright, an old friend, Thomas Percy,
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a gentleman with a post at court, and Guy Fawkes,
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a Yorkshireman who had spent ten years fighting for Spain
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in the Low Countries, in the war against the Dutch.
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Fox was the explosives expert, the soldier of the group.
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Over the next year, the circle grew to 13 men,
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all from gentry families, all devout Catholics, all sworn to
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secrecy on oath. Their plan was simple and terrifying. They
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would blow up the House of Lords during the state
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opening of Parliament. when the king, the queen, Prince Henry,
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and the whole government would be in one room. Then,
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while London reeled, they would raise a revolt in the
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Midlands and install the king's nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, as
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a Catholic queen.
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The key to the plan was a room. Through Thomas Percy,
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who had a position at court, the plotters leased a cellar,
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an undercroft, directly beneath the House of Lords chamber in
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March of 1605. Under cover of night, they carried in
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the gunpowder, barrel by barrel, and hid it under piles
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of coal and firewood. Thirty-six barrels in all. Enough, experts
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later said, to destroy not only the chamber above, but
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much of the Palace of Westminster around it. The opening
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of Parliament had been delayed several times because of outbreaks
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of plague in London, and the date was finally fixed
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for Tuesday the 5th of November, 1605. Fawkes, posing as
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Percy's servant, a man called John Johnson, would stay in
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the cellar, light the fuse, and slip away across the
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Thames in a boat. The explosion would do the rest.
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But the plot was undone by a letter. On the
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26th of October, 1605, ten days before the opening, a
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Catholic nobleman named William Parker, Lord Monteagle, received an anonymous
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letter at his house in Hoxton. It warned him, out
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of love for some of his friends, to stay away
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from Parliament, because those attending would suffer a terrible blow.
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Monteagle took the letter straight to the King's chief minister,
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Robert Cecil. Nobody knows for certain who wrote it. The
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prime suspect has always been Francis Tresham, Monteagle's brother-in-law and
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a fellow plotter, who may have wanted to save his
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friend or to save himself. The letter was shown to
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the King on the 1st of November. James read it
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and understood it at once. Someone meant to blow up Parliament.
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But the government waited. The king ordered a search, but
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not until the last possible moment. On the evening of
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the 4th of November, the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Howard, Earl
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of Suffolk, went down into the cellars. He found Fawkes,
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dressed as a servant, standing beside an unusually large pile
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of firewood. Suffolk asked who owned the wood. Fawkes said
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it belonged to Thomas Percy, a known Catholic. That was
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enough to raise suspicion. Later that night, a second search,
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led by Sir Thomas Nivet, went back down. They moved
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the firewood and the coal, and there beneath it all
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were the thirty-six barrels. Fawkes was arrested on the spot,
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with his lantern and his matches, in the early hours
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of the 5th of November. Taken to the Tower of
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London and tortured on the King's own orders, he gave
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up the names of his fellow plotters within days.
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The others did not wait to be caught. Catesby, Percy,
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and the rest fled London for the Midlands, hoping to
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raise the revolt anyway. But without the explosion, there was
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no revolt. The country did not rise. On the 8th
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of November, government forces surrounded them at Holbeach House in Staffordshire.
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In a brief and violent gunfight, Catesby and Percy were killed,
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shot through the same bullet, it was said. The survivors
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were brought to London, tried on the 27th of January, 1606,
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and sentenced to the terrible death reserved for traitors. hanged, drawn,
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and quartered. Fox himself, weakened by torture, climbed the scaffold
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at Westminster and jumped from the ladder, breaking his neck
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before the worst of the sentence could be carried out.
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The plot had failed completely, but its consequences lasted for centuries.
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Parliament declared the 5th of November a National Day of Thanksgiving,
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with prayers, bonfires, and church services. Over time, the prayers faded,
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but the bonfires stayed, and the effigies... Every year, on
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the 5th of November, the English light bonfires, set off fireworks,
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and burn a figure of Guy Fawkes, the man caught
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in the cellar. Remember, remember, the 5th of November, the
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rhyme goes, gunpowder, treason, and plot. It is the only
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date in English history that is still celebrated with fire,
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400 years later. And it raises a strange question. Why
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is it Guy Fawkes night, and not Catesby night? Catesby
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planned it. Fawkes was only the man with the lantern.
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But Fawkes was the one caught red-handed, in the dark,
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beside the barrels. History remembers the man in the cellar.
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So how close did they come? Thirty-six barrels, one fuse,
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and a king who would have been dead before breakfast.
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The plot failed because of one anonymous letter, written by
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someone we still cannot name, warning a friend to stay away.
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One letter, and a kingdom survived. Without it, the 5th
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of November, 1605, might have been the day England lost
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its king, its parliament, and its government in a single blast,
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under a clear November sky.
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Next time on Turning Points, a king walks to the
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scaffold in front of his own palace, and a nation
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watches its monarch lose his head. Join us then.