On the 5th of November every year in Great Britain is celebrated “ Guy Fawkes Day“ (Guy Fawkes Day) – national holiday, also known as “The Night of the Fires” (Bonfire Night).
This day marks the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot – the failed attempt to blow up the British Parliament and carry out a coup d'état by a group of Catholics on November 5th in the distant year 1605.
Coup plotters, including 25-year-old Guy Fawkes, planned to blow up the House of Lords. 36 kegs of gunpowder were secretly brought into the basement of the building. Fox had to light the fuse and flee the country. However, many people knew about the conspiracy. He was exposed thanks to an anonymous letter to one of the Lords warning him not to attend the opening of the session of Parliament.
On the night of November 5, a search was made of the building, where Fox was found in the basement together with the stored gunpowder.
He and the other conspirators were executed a few months later – on January 31, 1606.
After that, the English Parliament passed a law, by which it was decreed that the 5th of November should be celebrated as “Thanksgiving Day for Salvation”. The law was in force until 1859, after which it was repealed, but the tradition of celebrating the day has been preserved to this day.
The holiday is now known as “Guy Fawkes Day” or “The Night of the Fires”. Every year on this day across Britain the earth and sky are lit up with great fires and dawn. As tradition dictates, straw effigies symbolizing the conspirator Guy Fawkes are burned.