Travel Tuesday (November 5, 2013, Guy Fawkes Day)

In December 2004 we went to England and Scotland over the holidays to join our older son as he finished his semester abroad at the University of Edinburgh.  We visited London for a few days during that trip and here is a photo of the Palace of Westminster where the House of Lords meets in one of the chambers of Parliament.

Today is the 408th anniversary of the failed "Gunpowder Plot" designed to blow up the House of Lords by stocking some 36 barrels of gunpowder in a rented house in London supposedly near enough to the Parliament building that conspirators could tunnel from the house to Parliament and plant the gunpowder. One of the members of the group who planned the Gunpowder Plot was Guy Fawkes, also known as Guido Fawkes and/or John Johnson.  Fawkes and others were interrogated and tortured until a confession was extracted and they were then sentenced to a gruesome death.  On the day of the execution, Guy Fawkes managed to break away on the scaffold and jump so that he broke his neck and thus avoided the painful death the others experienced.  Ever since 1606, the English have celebrated November 5th as "Guy Fawkes Day" with fireworks, bonfires and burning of Guy Fawkes effigies.

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Photograph of the Palace of Westminster (December 2004) by the author.

For more information on Guy Fawkes see the Wikipedia article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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