Welcome to London the year is a 1605 and we are in the cellars of the Palace of Westminster.
Above us in a few moments time, King James of England and Scotland and his son,
Prince of Wales will arrive to open the latest session of Parliament. In the cellars down
here we are surrounded by three quarters of a ton of prime English gunpowder.
In a few moments when they are settled upstairs I Guy Fawkes, will take this torch to that
gunpowder and send them all to a very noisy end and you my co-collaborators must run!
I don�t know why we are whispering, they know we�re here. We didn�t sneak in under
the cover of darkness, we had rented it from them. Well, the original plan was to rent
a house from across the street and then tunnel under but the tunnel gate kept getting flooded.
So we asked an estate agent and he found us this place and got it under a six months contract
which is perfect because as it happened, the King closed Parliament over the summer so
that he could go hunting. Well, it�s the plague you see, it�s very bad in the summer
months so you can�t really blame him. I don�t suppose we will get our deposit back
though. So let me tell you why we are in the cellars
of the Palace of Westminster ready to blow up the king and his government.
It was 70 years ago and King Henry VIII wanted to marry Ann Boleyn but the Pope wouldn�t
let him. So King Henry VIII threw the Catholics out of the country, closed down their monasteries
and started his own church, the Church of England and ever since, the Pope has been
looking to get back his power in the country. Well, 70 years have passed and things aren�t
going so well for the Catholics. Queen Elizabeth the first, King Henry VIII�s
daughter kept them at bay for 50 years and beat the Spanish at war; bowls, sailing, football.
And now, King James of Scotland and England has come to power and it�s even worse! He�s
even promised to rewrite the Bible in English and call it the King James Bible! Presumably
so he can put it into hotel rooms, I don�t know. Anyways, this is the last straw.
So a group of us Catholics get together at the Drake and Duck to plot a Catholic rebellion.
At the meeting there was me; Robert Catesby, Thomas Winter, Kit Wright and Thomas Percy
and after a few drinks somebody suggested killing the King and replacing him with a
Catholic. Cheers! After a few more drinks, somebody else suggested
filling a boat full of gunpowder, running it down the tent, pushing it under the Palace
and running away. Cheers! And to be honest, it did not get more technical
than that. Yes we had trouble with the tunnel and then the gunpowder went off. Not off boom
but off pooh; since the Spanish war ended and they stopped killing people with it, the
quality control has gone right downhill. It really is not a lot more than horse manure
and charcoal Anyways we might as well get on with it. Caught
red-handed! But how did they know we were here? How did our cunning plans fail?
Well, I have my own suspicions. Cast your mind back 18 months to our first
meeting at the Drake and Duck. It�s a lovely pub but surely a pub strand is somewhere where
you organize a football match or a trip to the theater or a stag night; it�s not the
place to plan regicide. And what about the estate agent? Surely the
estate agents must have been suspicious when a group of X wanted to rent a this place when
they could have had a perfectly good penthouse suite with Riverside view.
And what about the gunpowder bought by a mercenary, a known Catholic sympathizer in peacetime.
Surely that must have raised somebody�s eyebrows.
Yes sir, how can I help you?
Well, I would like to buy some gunpowder please.
Of course sir, how much would you like sir?
Well, about three quarters of a ton would be lovely.
Three quarters of a ton sir! You�re not planning on blowing anything up are you?
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! I am planning a fireworks display.
A fireworks display? How lovely! Special occasion?
My birthday.
Oh! Many happy returns sir!
Thank you very much indeed. I don�t suppose you do free delivery.
But what really did it for us was a letter, a letter that was written by one of the gang
to his brother in law. Francis Tresham�s brother-in-law was Lord
Monty and as a Lord, was planning to be at the opening of Parliament on this very day.
So Francis Tresham wrote him a letter saying, to cut a long story short, �Make your excuses
on November the 5th because something bad was going to happen and if you have any Lord
friends that you would like to tell do feel free but burn the letter afterwards.�
Well this letter gave Lord Monty a little problem; he could act on it and hope that
when 50 Catholic peers failed to turn up for Parliament on opening day, that nobody was
suspicious or use it to get in with the King and hand it over. Well, whatever he was going
to do, the king was sure to find out. So, don�t they come at the appointed hour
and catch me red-handed; they take me off to the torture chamber where of course, I
tell them absolutely everything! It hurts and they are very good at it.
So what of the rest of the gang? Well Robert Catesby, Thomas Winter, Kit Wright and Thomas
Percy went up north trying to drum up some more support for our Catholic rebellion but
it�s cold, it�s wet, it�s rainy, it�s windy, it�s England, it�s November, nobody
particularly wants to uprise. So they would head off to Holbeach house in
Staffordshire to plot their next move where somebody comes up with a great idea of drying
their gunpowder in front of the fire. Surprisingly the resultant explosion fails to kill any
of them but it is loud enough to alert the local police force who turn up the next morning
with 200 rifles. True to themselves, the plotters had to escape
by charging the policemen armed only with their swords. They die on the doorsteps, it�s
like Butch Cassidy in The Sundance Kid. Interestingly, the same bullet kills Robert Catesby and Thomas
Percy. So there you have it, they tried to blow up
the parliament and failed and on this night and ever since, the English have celebrated
by proving that we are not all useless with gunpowder and setting fire to many thousands
of pounds of fireworks in a short a time as possible. And to top it off, they like to
make an effigy of yours truly, cart it around in the streets in a wheelbarrow collecting
money for good causes, so somebody gets the benefit. A bit disappointing they insist on
throwing the effigy on to the fire. Anyways, I can�t hang around here, I�ve
got to hang around over there. Thank you.