Saturday 5 November 2016

HISTORICAL FUN: History facts 5th November

HISTORICAL FACTS for NOVEMBER 5th

On This Day In History in 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested for the part he played in the infamous Gunpowder Plot.
 
Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
 
In the early hours of the 5th of November, 1605, Guy Fawkes was discovered in the tunnels beneath the Houses of Parliament with dozens of barrels of gunpowder.
 
His plan was simple: Blow up Parliament and kill King James I of England.
 
Unknown to Guy Fawkes, the Palace of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament, and the tunnels beneath the buildings had been undergoing a rigorous search.
 
There had been a warning. A warning of a catastrophe and plot of such treason that was unrivalled in the entire history of England. Each room, each corridor, each nook and cranny were searched. Each stairwell and each tunnel were scoured.
 
Guy Fawkes was found with his arsenal of destruction.
 
For days Guy Fawkes was questioned, then tortured, so he would give up the names of his fellow conspirators. The pain got too much, and one by one, the names of the Thirteen were extracted.
 
Robert Catesby, Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Guy Fawkes and Thomas Percy. Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, and Sir Everart Digby.
 
Guy Fawkes was eventually tired for treason, the verdict in no doubt.
 
He as taken from the Tower of London, dragged on wattled hurdles to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster. For his execution, he would have a view of the building he intended to blow up.
 
Three of his fellow conspirators, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, and Robert Keyes, were hung before being quartered.
 
Guy Fawkes himself was the last to be executed, having to endure watching his friends undergo the torture first.
 
Instead of suffering from being Hung for a few minutes before he died, he jumped and his neck was instantly broken as the rope tightened. His body was then quartered and his body parts taken to the four corners of the kingdom to be displayed as a warning to any would-be traitors.
 
On This Day in 1688, King William III of England, well he wasn't at the time, landed in Brixham with his Dutch fleet.
 
He, of course, was William of Orange at the time, and married to Queen Mary II of England, who wasn't Mary II at the time, just Mary Stuart, daughter of King James II of England, who was King James II of England at the time.
 
Although not for much longer.
 
As William of Orange, who was about to be King William III of England, was about to depose him.
 
On This Day history in 1912, Woodrow Wilson won the presidential elections in the United States of America.

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