On Saturday night, here in Australia, fireworks started going off everywhere. It dawned on my daughter the lines “Remember, remember/the Fifth of November.” It was Guy Fawkes day!
The old boy is burned in effigy and explosions are set off in commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot, in which a band of Catholic terrorists packed the basement of Parliament with gunpowder with the idea of blowing up the English government and killing King James.
The plot was discovered when a conspirator wrote a letter to a friend telling him not to go to the House of Lords on November 5. The ensuring investigation found Guy in the basement setting the fuses. England was saved and November 5 became the equivalent of America’s Independence Day. Read all about it here: Bonfire Night 2016: Who was Guy Fawkes and where can you see the best firework displays?
Today, thanks to the comic book and the movie V for Vendetta, lots of people today celebrate the spirit of rebellion represented by Guy, with anarchists wearing Guy Fawkes masks. But that misses the point.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth (the remnants of the old British Empire that still have an allegiance to the monarchy, like Australia), this holiday has been observed for some 400 years.
Here is the rest of the poem:
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England’s overthrow.
But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake!
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
