Bonfire Night: The Real History Behind 5 November (and the Myths We Keep Repeating)

Every year on or around 5 November, the UK sets fire to things. Back gardens, village greens and huge organised displays light up, and someone always asks the question: hang on, what are we actually celebrating?

Most of us know the outline. Guy Fawkes, barrels of gunpowder, Houses of Parliament, “remember, remember”. But a lot of what we half-remember from school is a bit off. So, ahead of this year’s Bonfire Night, we went to Parliament, the National Archives and Royal Museums Greenwich to get the story straight.

The plot: what they were trying to do

The Gunpowder Plot was a plan to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, killing King James I (>UK Parliament: Gunpowder Plot FAQ).

Myth one: Guy Fawkes was the ringleader. He wasn’t. The plan was organised by Robert Catesby, a devout Catholic who hoped to kill the Protestant king and restore Catholic rule in England. Part of the plan was to kidnap the king’s nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and install her as a puppet queen (>Royal Museums Greenwich).

Fawkes was the man left guarding the gunpowder. He had fought for Spain in the Netherlands, and Historic Royal Palaces says he was the only one of the group who knew much about gunpowder, which is why he was chosen to set the fuse (>Historic Royal Palaces). Parliament adds that, having been abroad for years, he wasn’t known in London, and calls him “a minor cog in the wheel” (>UK Parliament). He just happened to be the one caught red-handed, so his is the name that stuck.

It’s also worth saying that the why is still argued over. Parliament’s own history page notes that “the origins of the plot remain unclear”, and while most historians see it as an attempt to restore Catholicism, others have suggested it may have been encouraged by agents trying to discredit the Jesuits (>UK Parliament). That’s a minority view, but it’s a sign of how murky 1605 still is.

The letter that gave it away

On 26 October 1605, a Catholic peer, Lord Monteagle, received an anonymous letter warning him to stay away from the opening of Parliament, because those there would “receive a terrible blow”. Monteagle passed it to the authorities (>The National Archives: The Monteagle letter).

Nobody knows for certain who wrote it. Even at the time, the plotters’ suspicion fell on one of their own, Francis Tresham, Monteagle’s brother-in-law, though he convinced them he hadn’t sent it (>UK Parliament: Discovery and flight). It has never been proved either way. Treat any article that tells you confidently “who wrote the letter” with suspicion.

Caught in the cellar

The plotters had rented an undercroft directly beneath the House of Lords chamber and filled it with gunpowder. On the night of 4 November, a search led by Sir Thomas Knyvett found Fawkes there, using the alias “John Johnson”. The Commons Journal the next morning recorded “Thirty-six Barrels of Gunpowder” in the vault (>UK Parliament: Discovery and flight). The plot was effectively foiled in the early hours of 5 November (>Royal Museums Greenwich).

Fawkes was taken to the Tower of London and interrogated (>Historic Royal Palaces). The other plotters fled to the Midlands. On 8 November the authorities caught up with them at Holbeach House in Staffordshire, and in a brief shoot-out Catesby, Thomas Percy and the brothers Christopher and Jack Wright were killed (>UK Parliament: Discovery and flight).

Myth two: Guy Fawkes was burned on a bonfire. He wasn’t. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered and was executed at Old Palace Yard, Westminster, on 31 January 1606 alongside other surviving plotters. A contemporary account says that, weak from torture, he climbed high enough up the ladder “to break his neck by the fall”, sparing himself the worst of the sentence (>Royal Museums Greenwich; >Historic Royal Palaces). The “guy” on the bonfire is a symbolic effigy, not a re-enactment.

The bonfires started that same night

Here’s the bit that surprises most people: the bonfires weren’t a later invention. On 5 November 1605 itself, as news spread that the king had survived, Londoners were allowed to light bonfires to celebrate, provided “this testemonye of joy be carefull done without any danger or disorder”, as historians writing on the OUP blog quote the order (>OUPblog).

So when you light a sparkler this week, you’re doing more or less what Londoners did more than 420 years ago, for more or less the same reason: relief that the king wasn’t dead.

For 250 years, it was the law

Myth three: Bonfire Night is just a folk tradition. It started as an official one. Within months of the plot, Parliament passed an Act (3 James I, cap. 1) appointing 5 November as a yearly day of thanksgiving for “the joyful day of deliverance” (>UK Parliament).

You can still read the original wording. It ordered every minister to hold morning prayer on 5 November, and every person to “diligently and faithfully resort to the parish church or chapel” and “abide orderly and soberly” during the service (>The Statutes Project: Observance of 5th November Act). Royal Museums Greenwich describes church attendance that day as compulsory (>RMG).

The Act stayed in force until 1859 (>UK Parliament), when it was repealed by the Anniversary Days Observance Act 1859, which came into force on 25 March that year (>Wikipedia: Observance of 5th November Act 1605). By then the religious service mattered less than the party: the bonfires, fireworks and guys had taken on a life of their own.

It’s worth being honest that for a long time the day also carried a hard anti-Catholic edge, which you can hear in the Act’s own language about “devilish papists”. Modern Bonfire Night has largely shed that, but it’s part of the real history.

The search that still happens today

One piece of 1605 survives inside Parliament itself. Before the State Opening of Parliament, the Yeomen of the Guard carry out a ceremonial search of the cellars beneath the Palace of Westminster, a tradition that comes straight from the discovery of Fawkes (>Historic Royal Palaces; >UK Parliament). These days it’s ceremony rather than security, but it’s still done.

What we’re really celebrating

Strip it back and Bonfire Night is a celebration of a plot that failed: a near miss that would have killed the king, his heir and much of the government in one go. Parliament describes the modern custom simply: fireworks, bonfires and children making guys, from big town displays to back gardens (>UK Parliament).

So, told straight:

• Guy Fawkes was the man with the matches, not the mastermind (that was Robert Catesby).
• He was caught on the night of 4 to 5 November with 36 barrels of gunpowder.
• He was executed in January 1606, not burned.
• Bonfires were lit in celebration on 5 November 1605 itself.
• Going to church on 5 November was required by law until 1859.

Enjoy the fireworks this year, and look after the pets and the neighbours while you’re at it.