The Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot was a failed assassination attempt of King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby in 1605. This was because hopes of securing religious tolerance under King James had now disappeared. Therefore they planned to blow up the House of Lords, during the State Opening of England’s Parliament on November the 5th.
Guy Fawkes, the most famous constituent of the revolt, was put in charge of the explosives since he had 10 years of military training in the suppression of the Dutch Revolt. But on the 26th of October, William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, received an anonymous letter telling away the plot. The 4th of November, at midnight, the House of Lords was searched and they found Guy Fawkes there, guarding enough explosives to send the House of Lords to better life. He was arrested, and a lot of conspirators fleed, while some fought and died. The 27th of January, 1606, Guy Fawkes and 8 other survivors were tried, convicted and hanged. And also a Jesuit, Father Henry Garnet, who supposedly knew of the plot, by confession, but was unable to say anything of it.
This revolt was caused by the Anglican church of England. After Henry VIII had separated England from the Roman Catholic Church, and Elizabeth I introduced the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which made the population tied to the Anglican church, came King James I of England VI of Scotland. At first he was tolerant of the Catholic religion, until an incident regarding a rosary, Sir Anthony Danten and his wife, Queen Anne, he started a persecution trying to get the Catholics out of England.