The First Public Guy

Abstract

On November 4, 1605, Guy Fawkes was just another obscure English gentleman with Catholic sympathies and a decade of success as a courageous and skilled soldier. His obscurity abruptly changed in the night of November 5. On November 6, encouraged by “gentler tortures” ordered by the king, “John Johnson” confessed that he was Guy Fawkes. Thus the public quickly learned that Guy Fawkes had come very close to destroying the House of Lords with everyone in it, and the name Guy Fawkes became immediately one of the most famous in England, far more than that of Robert Catesby, because Guy had been the guy with the match. Within two months, all 13 of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators were arrested or killed, including four in a gunfight at Holbeche House in Staffordshire. On January 30 and 31, 1506, having been convicted of treason in a short trial, he and the seven others who remained alive were hanged, drawn, and quartered. That was the end for the earthly Guy.