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1605: The fifth of November was a day of treason…
1605: The fifth of November was a day of treason…
Behind the famous rhyme lies a murderous conspiracy that goes far beyond Guy Fawkes and his ill-fated Gunpowder Plot . . .
In a desperate race against time, spy Christian Hardy must uncover a web of deceit that runs from the cock-fighting pits of Shoe Lane, to the tunnels beneath a bear-baiting arena in Southwark, and from the bad lands of Clerkenwell to a brutal firefight in The Globe theatre.
But of the forces ranged against Hardy, all pale beside the renegade Spanish agent codenamed Realm.
Guy Fawkes was one of a group of English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He fought for Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years’ War against Protestant Dutch reformers and the later travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England without success. He later met Thomas Wintour and Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I in order to restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. Guy Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder which was stored underneath parliament.
He was caught and set to die at the Tower of London but broke his neck by falling from the scaffold before he could be hanged. This is the man whose effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire on November 5th.
Shakespeare would have been familiar with the conspirators as the very perpretrators of the crime had some close connections tothe playwright. Shakespeare’s father, John was friends with William Catesby, the father of the head conspirator, Robert Catesby.
Shakespeare wove direct references to the Gunpowder plot into Macbeth.
Guy Fawkes was born on 13 April 1570 at 25 High Petergate in the shadow of York Minster. He was baptised at the church of St Michael le Belfrey nearby.
Destination: London, York, Stratford upon Avon Author/Guide: James Jackson Departure Time: 1605
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