Remember, Remember… It’s Good to Talk - The Observer
Sun 5 Nov 2000
Remember, remember - on Guy Fawkes' night, New Labour could do well to realise that it's good to talk
Once upon a time, a vital, enthusiastic man came to power in England. It was spring and the people rejoiced: all over the country could be heard the music of trumpets, and the glad cries of his name. Casks of wine were opened in the streets, rich men threw gold coins out of their windows to the poor, and bonfires were lit in celebration. After the long years of the previous regime, whose last few were marked by political instability and fractiousness, he was hailed as 'a prince of great hope', and his people trusted that he would right the wrongs made by his old, out-of-touch predecessor. He arrived in London triumphant, at the head of a gaggle of grasping acolytes, all determined to have their piece of the pie. Sound familiar? But no, this was not May 1997 but March 1603 and the man was James I, the king who succeeded Elizabeth Tudor.
Elizabeth's last years had undermined the unity of the realm, as well as the monarchy's security. James Stuart, already the VI of Scotland, was welcomed as the man who could heal England's social, political and religious divisions. Although Elizabeth's deliberately vague religious stance was intended to allow her people to put their country before their beliefs - if conscience permitted a Catholic to take the Oath of Supremacy she would not seek to make windows into his soul - committed Catholics were still excluded from participation in English life. Recusants faced fines, imprisonment, torture and, ultimately, death.
James I's mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was seen by many as a Catholic martyr. When he came to the throne his Catholic subjects hoped he would view their cause with favour. They looked for religious tolerance and its attendant social and financial implications: allowing Catholics not just to practise their faith openly but also to own land, vote and travel freely about the country.
But less than three years after James came to power the conspiracy we know today as the Gunpowder Plot was hatched, at almost the same time as a bill was introduced in Parliament that would make every English Catholic an outlaw. Once-high hopes for change had been dashed. The desperation James's Catholic subjects felt about not being able to reconcile their faith to their patriotism was mixed with bitter disappointment, and set a small band of them on 'that furious and fiery course' that would result in all their deaths.
In the small hours of the morning of 5 November 1605, Guy Fawkes, a Catholic mercenary from Yorkshire who had spent the last years of Elizabeth's reign fighting for the Spanish on the continent, was discovered in the vaulted cellars beneath the Houses of Parliament, close beside 36 barrels of gunpowder. James's advisors were not surprised to find Fawkes there. They had been informed of the plot to kill the king and every member of his government, and to crown a Catholic in his stead. Eventually, they were able to arrest and execute all 13 plotters, and later used the plot as justification for their increasingly harsh repression of Catholics.
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Fawkes and his associates were desperate men. They believed they had no option but to risk everything in the hope that they might change the way their country was ruled. They may have acted so recklessly because their hopes had been raised on James's accession a few years earlier; the subsequent disillusion was then all the greater. It is always easier to bear a situation when it seems hopeless, than when a glimpse of hope has been sighted and snatched away.
We remember Guy Fawkes's name, because he was the conspirators' front man, charged with implementing the plan to blow up the Parliament buildings and everyone within them; in fact, it was Robert Catesby who masterminded the plans. Almost by default Fawkes has become the symbol of the Gunpowder Plot, held up as an example of how not to protest. This is as it should be: no one could condone blowing up kings and Ministers as a means of achieving political aims. But perhaps Fawkes's fate is still relevant, a reminder of what extreme ends people can reach when they feel disenfranchised by policy, or excluded from participation in the political process.
Is it ever right to take the law into our own hands, if we think the law itself is not right? Lord Melchett and his band of Greenpeace activists clearly thought so, indeed have been vindicated in court; they are supported by much of the population, as were the fuel protesters in September, and the rioters in Seattle last year. In a democracy, minorities can and should fight to alter the way in which governments govern.
If Guy Fawkes's methods were wrong, that does not detract from the fact that James I was also wrong (by today's standards) to refuse to allow his people to worship as their conscience dictated. Remember, remember the fifth of November - and perhaps the sight of a blazing Guy on a bonfire tonight will remind our leaders that being in power does not necessarily mean they are in the right.
The Observer - 5th November 2000