 Here is the entire text of a review of Antonia Fraser's new book The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and
Faith in 1605, found in the Daily Mail, Sunday, August 24, 1996, pg 32-33, entitled, "Traitor's plot that went up in smoke."
It's a peculiar thing, but the one date in British history we all remember
is not that of a victory, such as the Armada, Trafalgar or Waterloo.
It is the Fifth of November, the date of the discovery of the Gunpowder
Plot and Treason.
Other countries send up fireworks to commemorate revolution or independence;
we do it in honour of something that did not happen - the
biggest planned act of terrorism in our history.
Guy Fawkes and his 36 barrels of gunpowder may sound small-scale by the
standards of the Manchester Arndale Center and Canary Wharf explosions, but
they would have been enough to send King James I, the Queen, the heir to
the throne, Lords and Commons sky high and cause total breakdown in
public order.
The plotter, of whom Guy Fawkes was by no means the leader, had vague
intentions of putting the nine-year old Princess Elizabeth on the throne.
With some Catholic nobleman as Regent, they would reinstate the Roman
Catholic rite as the official religion of the land.
In spite of nearly four centuries of notoriety, many details of the
'Powder Treason', as it was then called, and how and why it was discovered,
remain obscure. In Antonia Fraser's judicious and detailed new study,
students of the plot will find every theory explored with case and common
sence.
So was the King to blame? The newly arrived James I was, as he pointed out,
the son of a Catholic, Mary Queen of Scots, and had married Anne of Denmark,
who was a Catholic in private. Had he falsely encouraged Catholic hopes
of future toleration and then betrayed them?
Several Jesuit fathers were hidden in the houses of the plotters' families
and friends and acted as confessors. Some knew of the plot in advance. Did
they actively encourage treason and, if not, why could they not prevent
these devout Catholics from going ahead? Could the plot have been set up
to cathc those Catholics and Jesuits hostile to James's succession?
It is impossible to answer such questions with certainty because the
evidence is either missing or suspect. Some of the conspirators, including
the hot-headed leader Robert Catesby, were killed before they could be
interrogated. The remaining eight confessed under torture, though some of
them later retracted.
There is an advantage in having the tale told from the Catholic point of
view. Lady Antonia's view is steeped in the Catholic families of the
time and the hardships they suffered under the laws that suppressed
Roman Catholic practice.
Nevertheless, most of the Catholic gentry managed to construct a
modus vivendi - saying Mass in private and conforming in public,
enough to allow social acceptance. All that was to end with the discovery
of the plot, which dealt a huge blow to the reputation- and to toleration-
of Catholics for 200 years.
So, was it worth it? Could the plot possibly have succeeded? There is only
one answer: it never stood a ghost of a chance.
The entire mad scheme was based on wildly wishful thinking. There was no
Catholic party prepared to rise up at the signal. When the plotters
came out of hiding in the Midlands, no one joined them.
Lady Antonia calls the conspirators 'brave, but misguided'. She might well
have added 'reckless and wrong'. As terrorists who were prepared tto
slaughter the innocent, they deserved to die - and most of them admitted it.
Buty she is at pains to show this was not true of the Jesuit, Father
Henry Garnet, who maintained to the end that he had done his best to
dissuade them.
Unlike the rest of the plotters, he died before he was cut down, drawn and
quartered, thanks to the intervention of the crowd, which diverted the
hangman while pulling on Garnet's legs.
When the 'traitor's heart' was cut out and help up, no one cheered.
Unpopular as Jesuits were, here was one who died a holy death.
Such details speak to us across the centuries. For instance, when Fawkes's
gunpowder was recovered, it was found to have seperated into its
constituents. So even if he had survived to light the fuse, it probably
wouldn't have exploded. Such are the ironies of history.
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