Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night, is an annual commemoration observed on or about 5 November, primarily in Great Britain, but also in some Commonwealth nations. Its history is traced directly to the events of 5 November 1605, when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was caught guarding explosives placed beneath the House of Lords and arrested. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the assassination attempt, bonfires were lit around London; months later the government introduced the Observance of 5th November Act, which enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure.

Within a few decades Gunpowder Treason Day became the predominant English state commemoration, but as it carried strong religious overtones it also became a focus for anti-Catholic sentiment. Puritans used the event to preach against the perceived dangers of popery, while during increasingly raucous celebrations common folk burnt effigies of Catholic hate-figures, such as the pope. Toward the end of the 18th century reports appear of children begging for money with effigies of Guy Fawkes and 5 November gradually became known as Guy Fawkes Day. Towns such as Lewes and Guildford were in the 19th century scenes of increasingly violent class-based confrontations, fostering traditions those towns celebrate still, albeit peaceably. In the 1850s changing attitudes eventually resulted in the toning down of much of the day's anti-Catholic rhetoric. The original 1606 legislation was repealed in 1859 and the day's accompanying violence dealt with, and by the 20th century Guy Fawkes Day, or Fireworks Day as it was occasionally known, had become an enjoyable social commemoration—although missing some of its original meaning.

Settlers exported Guy Fawkes Night to English and later British overseas colonies, including parts of North America, where it was known as Pope Day. Although in the Thirteen Colonies festivities died out with the onset of the American Revolution, in Britain the present-day Guy Fawkes Night is usually celebrated with large organised events, centred around a bonfire and extravagant firework displays.

Origins and history in England

Guy Fawkes Night originates from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a failed conspiracy by a group of provincial English Catholics to assassinate the Protestant King James I of England and replace him with a Catholic head of state. In the immediate aftermath of the plot's discovery London was in a state of confusion, most evident amongst the lower classes. Reflecting the general lack of reliable information, one observer remarked: "the common people muttered and imagined many things". All that was known for certain was that the king had somehow been saved from death; celebrations were therefore a natural response. The Council decided to allow the lighting of bonfires, a traditional English celebration, so long as they were "without any danger or disorder".^[1] Thus 5 November 1605 was the first celebration of what became known as Gunpowder Treason Day.^[2]

In January 1606, just days before the surviving conspirators were executed, the Observance of 5th November Act 1605 (commonly known as the "Thanksgiving Act") was passed. Proposed by the "fervently Protestant"^[3] MP Edward Montagu, 1st Baron Montagu of Boughton, the Act ensured that 5 November was kept free as a day of thanksgiving.^[4] Attendance at Church on 5 November became mandatory,^[3] and each anniversary was remembered with the ringing of church bells, special sermons (including readings of the Bill itself),^{[nb 1]} and the lighting of bonfires^[6]—although it took several decades for the date to be commemorated in all of England's parishes.^[7]

By the 1620s Gunpowder Treason Day was honoured in market towns and villages across the country, and had become the predominant English state commemoration,^[7] but concerns about Catholicism, King James's foreign policy and the decline of international Protestantism, saw English Protestants unify around 5 November. Its popularity continued to grow as Charles I took the throne and hostilities with Catholic Spain resumed, but what unity Gunpowder Treason Day engendered faded following Charles's marriage to the Catholic Henrietta Maria of France. Puritans reacted to the union by using 5 November to attack Popery, and a new prayer was issued to warn against rebellion and the dangers of Catholicism. The celebrations assumed a new fervour during the events leading up to the English Interregnum, as Parliamentarians began to uncover or fear new plots. It was about this period that the Day also became known as Bonfire Night.^[8][9]

Following Charles's execution in 1649, the country's new republican regime remained undecided on how to treat an event that celebrated the deliverance of a Stuart king, although despite the lack of official approval the day was still marked by bonfires and miniature explosives. Official celebrations resumed with the Restoration, during which new statutory anniversaries were introduced on 30 January and 29 May, commemorating the execution of Charles and the return of his son. Despite the official line that the event marked God's preservation of the English throne, commonly the celebrations were more diverse. London apprentices began to spend the day attacking not only Popery, but also "sobriety and good order",^[10] demanding money from coach occupants for alcohol and bonfires. The burning of effigies, largely unknown to the Jacobeans,^[11] began with the firing in 1673 of an effigy of the Whore of Babylon, dressed by the apprentices with a range of Papal symbols. This was the beginning of centuries of tradition^[12] and toward the end of the 18th century the popular image to burn was not the Pope, but that of Guy Fawkes, the man discovered guarding the explosives beneath the House of Lords. Gradually, Gunpowder Treason Day became Guy Fawkes Day. In 1790 The Times reported instances of children "begging for money for Guy Faux", and a report of 4 November 1802 described how "a set of idle fellows ... with some horrid figure dressed up as a Guy Faux" were convicted of begging and receiving money, and committed to prison as "idle and disorderly persons".^[13][14] Nationally, effigies of Guy Fawkes were subsequently joined by those of contemporary hate figures such as the Pope, the Sultan of Turkey, the Tsar of Russia and the Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell. In 1899 an effigy of the South African Republic leader Paul Kruger was burnt at Ticehurst, and during the 20th century effigies of militant suffragists, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolf Hitler, Margaret Thatcher and John Major were similarly burnt.^[15][16][17]

Under the Catholic James II fireworks were banned, but attempts by the government to tone down the celebrations were largely unsuccessful. Some people reacted to the ban on bonfires in London (born from a fear of more burnings of the Pope's effigy) by placing candles in their windows, "as a witness against Catholicism".^[18] When James was deposed in 1688 by William of Orange—who importantly, landed in England on 5 November—the day's events turned also to the celebration of freedom and religion, joined in later years by parts of William's birthday celebrations of 4 November,^{[nb 2]} and elements of anti-Jacobitism. The ban on fireworks continued, although by then it was for safety reasons, "much mischief having been done by squibs".^[9] By the beginning of the 18th century, 5 November had become "a polysemous occasion, replete with polyvalent cross-referencing, meaning all things to all men", but as one of 49 official holidays it had lost some of its meaning. For the ruling class, Guy Fawkes Day became overshadowed by events such as the birthdays of Admiral Edward Vernon, or John Wilkes, and under George II and George III, with the exception of the Jacobite Rising of 1745 the day was largely "a polite entertainment rather than an occasion for vitriolic thanksgiving". For the lower classes, the anniversary became a chance to pit disorder against order, a pretext for violence and uncontrolled revelry. This theme continued into the 19th century, with reports in Lewes of annual rioting, intimidation of "respectable householders" and the rolling of lighted tar barrels through the streets. In Guildford, gangs of revellers calling themselves "guys" terrorised the local population; proceedings were concerned more with the settling of old arguments and general mayhem, than any historical reminiscences.^[19]

On several occasions during the 19th century The Times reported that the tradition was in decline, being "of late years almost forgotten", but in the opinion of historian David Cressy, such reports reflected "other Victorian trends" and not general observance of Guy Fawkes Day.^[14] The traditional denunciations of Catholicism were thought by many to be outdated, including Queen Victoria, who agreed with the complaints of her Catholic subjects.^[20] In 1850 the Pope's restoration of the English Catholic hierarchy reignited some of the older tensions, and effigies were burnt of the new Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Nicholas Wiseman, and the Pope. David Jardine's A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, published in 1857, only stoked the flames higher. In Parliament, Earl Stanhope moved that the thanksgiving prayer of 5 November contained in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer be abolished. This met little resistance and in March 1859 the Anniversary Days Observance Act became law, repealing the 1606 Act.^[21][22][23] As the authorities dealt with the worst excesses, public decorum was gradually restored. The sale of fireworks was restricted,^[24] and the Guildford "guys" were neutered in 1865, although this was too late for one constable, who died of his wounds.^[20]

As organised entertainments became popular, twentieth-century consumerism saw Guy Fawkes Day renamed by firework manufacturers as Firework Night. The steady increase in sales of these pyrotechnics dwindled somewhat during the First World War, but resumed in the following peace.^[25] At the start of the Second World War celebrations were again suspended, resuming in November 1945 when Time magazine reported on the burning in Lewes of an effigy of the Pope and the delivery of a mock sermon.^[26] Some sporadic instances of public disorder persisted late into the 20th century and a steady increase in the sale of fireworks was accompanied by large numbers of related accidents. A national Firework Code, combined with a gradual move from private celebrations to the large communal displays favoured by the Victorians, has in most cases brought an end to such things.^[27]

A popular celebration held at Ottery St Mary in Devon includes a remnant of a 19th-century custom, where grown men run through the streets carrying lit barrels of tar, avoiding others who attempt to take the barrels from them. Serious injuries are unknown, although some come away with cuts and bruises.^[28] Extravagant 5 November celebrations also take place in the Sussex town of Lewes. Festivities have been held there since at least 1679, but the afore-mentioned violence between 'Bonfire Boys' and the authorities had abated by the 1870s, leading to the popular spectacle held today.^[29] Many modern 5 November celebrations are run by local charities and other organisations, with paid admission and controlled access. As David Cressy writes, "the rockets go higher and burn with more colour, but they have less and less to do with memories of the Fifth of November ...it might be observed that Guy Fawkes' Day is finally declining, having lost its connection with politics and religion. But we have heard that many times before."^[30]

Similarities with other customs

Historians have often suggested that Guy Fawkes Day served as a Protestant replacement for the ancient Celtic and Nordic festivals of Samhain, pagan events that the church absorbed and transformed into All Hallow's Eve and All Souls' Day. In The Golden Bough, the Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer suggested that Guy Fawkes Day exemplifies "the recrudescence of old customs in modern shapes". David Underdown, writing in his 1987 work Revel, Riot, and Rebellion, viewed Gunpowder Treason Day as a replacement for Hallowe'en: "just as the early church had taken over many of the pagan feasts, so did Protestants acquire their own rituals, adapting older forms or providing substitutes for them".^[31] While the use of bonfires to mark the occasion was most likely taken from the ancient practice of lighting celebratory bonfires, the idea that the commemoration of 5 November 1605 ever originated from anything other than the safety of James I is, according to David Cressy, "speculative nonsense".^[32] Citing Cressy's work, Ronald Hutton agrees with his conclusion, writing "there is, in brief, nothing to link the Hallowe'en fires of North Wales, Man, and central Scotland with those which appeared in England upon 5 November."^[3] Despite such disagreements, in 2005 David Cannadine commented on the encroachment into British culture of modern American Hallowe'en celebrations, and their effect on Guy Fawkes Night:

Nowadays, family bonfire gatherings are much less popular, and many once-large civic celebrations have been given up because of increasingly intrusive health and safety regulations. But 5 November has also been overtaken by a popular festival that barely existed when I was growing up, and that is Halloween ... Britain is not the Protestant nation it was when I was young: it is now a multi-faith society. And the Americanised Halloween is sweeping all before it—a vivid reminder of just how powerfully American culture and American consumerism can be transported across the Atlantic.^[33]

Another celebration involving fireworks, the five-day festival of Diwali (normally observed between mid-October and November), in 2010 began on 5 November. This led The Independent to comment on the similarities between the two, its reporter Kevin Rawlinson wondering "which fireworks will burn brightest".^[34]

In other countries

Guy Fawkes Day was exported by English and later British settlers to colonies around the world.^[35] In parts of North America it was known as Pope Day, celebrated mainly in colonial New England, but also as far south as Charleston. The first recorded celebration in Boston was in 1685, the same year that James II assumed the throne. In November 1735 a local minister wrote "a Great number of people went over to Dorchester neck [South Boston] where at night they made a Great Bonfire and plaid off many fireworks", although the day ended in tragedy when "4 young men coming home in a Canoe were all Drowned." Ten years later the raucous celebrations were the cause of considerable annoyance to the upper classes and a special Riot Act was passed, to prevent "riotous tumultuous and disorderly assemblies of more than three persons, all or any of them armed with Sticks, Clubs or and kind of weapons, or disguised with vizards, or painted or discolored faces, on in any manner disgused, having any kind of imagery or pageantry, in any street, lane, or place in Boston." With inadequate resources, however, Boston's authorities were powerless to enforce the Act. In the 1740s gang violence became common, with groups of Boston residents battling for the honour of burning the Pope's effigy. By the mid-1760s the riots had subsided, and as colonial America moved towards revolution, the class rivalries featured during Pope Day gave way to anti-British sentiment.^[36]

The passage in 1774 of the Quebec Act, which guaranteed French Canadians free practice of Catholicism in the Province of Quebec, provoked complaints from some Americans that the British were introducing "Popish principes and French law" to Quebec.^[37] These fears were bolstered by the opposition from the Church in Europe to American independence, threatening a revival of Pope Day.^[38] Commenting in 1775, George Washington was less than impressed by the thought of any such resurrections, forbidding any under his command from participating:^[39]

As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form'd for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope—He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain'd, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.^[40]

Generally, following Washington's complaint, American colonists stopped observing Pope Day, although according to The Bostonian Society some citizens of Boston celebrated it on one final occasion, in 1776.^[41] The tradition continued in Salem as late as 1817.^[42] In the late 18th century, effigies of prominent figures such as two Prime Ministers of Great Britain, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute and Frederick North, Lord North and the American General Benedict Arnold, were also burnt.^[43] In the 1880s bonfires were still being burnt in some New England coastal towns, although no longer to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. In the area about New York stacks of barrels were burnt on election day eve, which after 1845 was a Tuesday early in November.^[44]

In Canada 5 November is commemorated with bonfires and firework displays,^[45] and official celebrations continue in South Africa.^[46] In parts of the Caribbean laws banning fireworks and explosives have muted the occasion,^[47] and safety concerns in New Zealand have resulted in similar sales restrictions, although public firework displays on Guy Fawkes Night remain popular there.^{[48][49][50][51]}

See also

• Bonfire toffee
• Sussex Bonfire Societies
• West Country Carnival

References

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

• 5th of November in Boston – historical accounts of Pope Day
• Oral history collection on Bonfire Night in Newfoundland, Canada