Why The English Celebrate Bonfire Night
Some people think Bonfire Night is all bang and fizzle to kick off the festive season countdown, with only 7 weeks to Christmas! But our 21st century firework displays and standing around a bonfire are actually founded upon deeper historical roots.
The 1605 Gunpowder Plot by a group of Catholic conspirators is where our story starts.Their goal? To blow up Parliament during the state opening, wipe out King James I and the establishment, and trigger a popular uprising.
Let’s rewind a moment. Why did they want to blow up Parliament?
A Protestant King had come to power. In this post-Reformation period, James I held the throne. It was a time of religious and political instability for English Catholics who hoped that the persecution they’d endured for the past 45 years would end. They wanted freedom to practice their religion, but it never arrived.
So a group of conspirators banded together, including the renowned Guy Fawkes.
Guy Fawkes (the anti-hero)
Born: York, 1570
Education: St Peter’s - who today do not celebrate Bonfire night & refuse to burn an effigy of Guy!
Died: 31 January 1606 (aged 35), hung for high treason - his body was quartered and sent to the 4 corners of the kingdom as a warning to others who considered rising up against the state
But as Mr Fawkes’ biography suggests, the plot was foiled before it had really begun when Lord Monteagle, a fellow Catholic, received a warning letter from the conspirators which he passed on to the Protestant King’s chief minister (rather than burning it as instructed by its author).
Source: Hulton Archives
36 barrels of gunpowder had been smuggled into a cellar under the House of Lords where Fawkes and other members of this conspiracy awaited. While he wasn’t the ringleader, he was caught red-handed.
Half the plotters discovered were killed trying to flee the scene. The rest, including Guy Fawkes, were captured and tried for treason. In January 1606, they were found guilty and executed after staying at the Tower of London.
Every year since this attempt to blow up the government, Yeomen search the Houses of Parliament before the State opening to ensure no one is waiting nefariously in the wings!
From the Parliamentary Archives (The Guy Fawkes Search on the opening of Parliament, 1901, photographer Benjamin Stone)
How did the celebrations begin?
After the Thanksgiving Act was passed (Jan 1606) annual church celebrations became an established tradition for the 5th November. These ceremonies were traditionally celebrated with sermons. Although many Catholics abstained, not wishing to celebrate yet more defeat.
Over time traditional ceremonies like this have waned along with the discriminatory, sectarian meaning of Guy Fawkes night. Festivities like bell-ringing, bonfires and fireworks have grown into popular traditions all over the UK instead.
Still, it’s crazy to think that for over 400 years we’ve marked this moment in history as a festival, when so many other historical moments and festivals have been lost to the archives.
Lewes (with over 30 bonfire processions!) and Battle have become two of the most famous, and riotous, bonfire nights here in the UK. Originally local businessmen came together to organise and sponsor community events for charity. This morphed into four bonfire societies who began arranging annual gala events and parades for the day.
Today the Battle Bonfire Boyes continue this tradition.
Elsewhere traditions have been adopted as in Northern Ireland where bonfire nights are held on two occasions: 11 July - an Ulster Protestant celebration known as Eleventh Night - and 23 June June - on St John’s Even, a Catholic tradition.
Some Commonwealth countries have also adopted the tradition. Settlers in colonial America celebrated 'Pope Night’, an annual anti-Catholic holiday, but the tradition died out after the American Revolution. You might also find alternative Bonfire Night celebrations in locations further afield like Malaysia or Istanbul.
Traditions
Victorian society also shaped the way we celebrate Bonfire Night today. From the 1870s onwards, activities became regulated; a far move from the anarchic pre-Victorian era celebrations of locals settling scores or a chance to run riot.
Moving into the 20th Century, by 1910, firework manufacturers had cottoned on and began cashing in on the act. They rebranded the occasion ‘Fireworks Night’. And boy did their year-on-year sales rocket! So the terms Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night and Guy Fawkes have all become pretty synonymous.
There’s one Victorian phrase that still hangs about modern society. You’ll sometimes hear kids shouting: ‘Penny for the Guy’. Children who had made effigies of Guy Fawkes would carry them around town asking for pennies to buy fireworks.
At first, this seems like another apparently bizarre UK tradition (much like celebrating a failed conspiracy) but this has 13th century origins. Burning a dummy on a bonfire was said to drive away evil spirits. It was only after the Gunpowder plot, the dummies were adopted to represent Guy Fawkes and his treason.
We’ve come a long way since 1605. Our 5th November swaps conspirators for campaigns on how to save hedgehogs hiding in bonfires and debates over the environmental impact of fireworks. But it’s always important to nod to the origins of this crazy tradition, our collective history that we continue to share and always remember (remember the 5th of November)!
Written by Caroline J