How good is your history ?
You perhaps know that Bonfire nights is traditionally held on the 5th November in England and celebrates the crushing of a conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament along with King James 1st.
The actual event took place on that date in 1605 just two years after the death of the protestant queen Elizabeth. As usual the whole event revolved around religion – Guy Fawkes a Catholic joined a group of rebels unhappy with the lack of religious reforms introduced by James 1st – a catholic king. The plot which involved igniting 20 barrels of gunpowder was discovered when one of the conspirators Francis Tresham foolishly wrote a letter to his brother-in-law warning him to stay away from Parliament on that day. The plot was quickly discovered in time and the perpetrators were all caught and tortured before the full story was revealed - they were then exceuted as religious heretics.
Nowadays we celebrate this event by building a huge bonfire and burning and effigy (the Guy) of Guy Fawkes on top of it – the event is of course accompanied by fireworks. There are some great local bonfire night listed on the site (not all on November 5th) so please take a look at our events section to get times and places.
