Cellar for rent, central city location

The 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes Day
was celebrated last year

In 1605 English Roman Catholic conspirators made plans to kill Protestant King James I, his family and most of England's aristocracy in one brutal act. The 13 conspirators planned to destroy the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament using 817 kgs of gunpowder. Guido Fawkes, also known as Guy Fawkes, was placed in charge of executing the plot because of his military and explosives experience. However he was discovered in a cellar under Parliament along with the barrels of gunpowder on November 5. The date of his arrest has been celebrated as Guy Fawkes Day ever since.

Tonight as we walked down the street for dinner at our favourite Chinese restaurant, he could hear the sound of home-lit fireworks resounding across the city. The noise was incredible. Explosions were constantly taking place as rockets lit the sky in every direction. I don't recall so much noise as a child on Guy Fawkes Day.

Garry later commented that this must have been what the Blitz sounded like during World War II. An unnerving thought as you're walking the streets of London. As a brief aside, I read a published letter recently in which an old man recalled collecting spent bullet cartridges that fell from the sky during the Battle of Britain. He recounted how the cartridges were still warm to touch as they landed.

Given that we're now living in England, I've been doing a little research on the The Gunpowder Plot. It makes for some fascinating reading. Astonishingly, Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators were actually able to rent a cellar beneath the House of Lords. It's hard to imagine such an act happening today. By March of 1605 they'd hidden the required volume of gunpowder, more than eight months before the state opening. It's staggering to think that this quantity of gunpowder went undetected for so long.

The plot was only uncovered when one of the conspirators wrote a letter to William Parker, 4th Baron of Monteagle, who was also a Catholic, warning him not to attend the State Opening. Lord Monteagle forwarded the letter to the secretary of state who in turn initiated a search of vaults underneath the House of Lords. Fawkes was discovered and arrested during a cellar raid on the morning of November 5. The State Opening had been scheduled for later the same day. It's clear that if the warning letter had not been sent a very different event would be celebrated every November.

The King subsequently granted special permission for Guy Fawkes to be tortured, thus ensuring that his co-conspirators were also revealed. It's hard not to draw parallels with the latest civil liberties debate that's raged since 9/11. As a final amusing epilogue, I learnt today that the cellars of Parliament are searched every year just before the State Opening in an enduring, but purely symbolic, tradition. This year's State Opening is scheduled to take place on November 15.