Remember, remember the 5th of November: Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Although most American’s have no idea who Guy Fawkes was, many have seen a Guy Fawkes mask, such as the one sported by “V” in the screen adaptation of Alan Moore’s “V for Vendetta” graphic novel and those worn by “Anonymous,” the anti-Scientology protesters. Fawkes and his revolutionary cohorts set about assassinating King James I and blowing up the Houses of Parliament in a 1604 conspiracy known as the Gunpowder Plot.  They amassed enough gunpowder in a basement near Westminster that they could have basically destroyed that part of London as well as killing nearly the entire membership of the House of Lords, the senior bishops of the Church of England and the royal family. Sadly — depending on your point of view — the plot failed, and Fawkes and his co-conspirators were put to death.

The character of Satan in Milton’s "Paradise Lost" is based on Fawkes, and today we have the word “guy” because of him — “burning the guy” in effigy is a part of how Bonfire Night is celebrated in England. It used to have a pejorative connotation, but this has long been forgotten. Each year in Britain, fireworks and bonfires are set alight, although the original meaning of the holiday — celebrating the scuttling of the plot and sparing the king’s life — has today taken on the opposite sentiment and is seen as more of a harmless anti-government celebration (which is how the day was marked during Revolutionary era American before becoming forgotten on these shores).

 — Richard Metzger

Photo credit: David Appleby/Warner Bros.