Guy Fawkes $1.69 AUD
Category: People & Places
‘Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot.’Guy Fawkes has been called the most famous terrorist in history for his involvement in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. His influence is still felt today in United Kingdom where ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ is still celebrated on 5 November.Guy Fawkes was born in York in 1570 when Queen Elizabeth I was on the English throne. It was an age where the only accepted form of Christianity was Protestantism. Catholics were greatly marginalised and often persecuted. Fawkes was the only son of Edward Fawkes and Edith Blake, both of whom were Protestants. Guy’s father died when he was just seven and his mother remained a widow for nine years before marrying Dennis Bainbridge, who was a Catholic. Guy Fawkes went to school at St Peter’s in York where he met future co-conspirators John and Christopher Wright. There he studied under the tutelage of John Pulleyn, a suspected Catholic. Whether it was due to the influence of his teacher or perhaps his step-father, Guy converted to Catholicism in his mid-teens, around the time Queen Elizabeth and Parliament were enacting a brutal repression of English Catholics.
