Quotes of the day 5th November 2013
Today we commemorate the failure of the plotters, let by Robert Catesby, who employed Guido Fawkes' in an attempt to blow up the houses of parliament.
There is an inevitable tendancy when people are feeling fed up with politicians to sympathise with this, e.g. the humorous description of Guy Fawkes as "The only person ever to enter parliament with honest intentions."
However, it is not always the case that people who try to get rid of politicians by blowing them up or any means other than election or a proper and duly constituted legal process find that they get a better result. Those who remove an ineffective monarch or tyrant, from Charles the First of Britain or Louis XVI of France through Tsar Nicholas to the Shah of Iran, all too often get a far more effective and ruthless dictator such as Cromwell, Robespierre and then Napoleon, Stalin, or Ayatollah Khomeini.
Some of those who cheered the military coup in Egypt, even though they had good reason to despair of the Muslim Brotherhood administration are now finding out the same lesson the hard way.
Sometimes using force to remove a corrupt and oppressive government which has lost the capacity for reform is the only option and sometimes, as in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, it works. One measure of how likely this is to work is that chance of a revolution actually improving things appears to be inversely correlated with the amount of bloodshed.
Hence there is more than a touch of irony as well as amusement in my main quote for today:
"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason!"
(Sir John Harington or Harrington, 1561-1612, known for his scholarship, biting satire, and for having invented the first flushing toilet. One of the occasions when he was banished was for a satirical work comparing the material this system was designed to remove with certain prominent politicians of the day.)
On a more humorous note:
There is an inevitable tendancy when people are feeling fed up with politicians to sympathise with this, e.g. the humorous description of Guy Fawkes as "The only person ever to enter parliament with honest intentions."
However, it is not always the case that people who try to get rid of politicians by blowing them up or any means other than election or a proper and duly constituted legal process find that they get a better result. Those who remove an ineffective monarch or tyrant, from Charles the First of Britain or Louis XVI of France through Tsar Nicholas to the Shah of Iran, all too often get a far more effective and ruthless dictator such as Cromwell, Robespierre and then Napoleon, Stalin, or Ayatollah Khomeini.
Some of those who cheered the military coup in Egypt, even though they had good reason to despair of the Muslim Brotherhood administration are now finding out the same lesson the hard way.
Sometimes using force to remove a corrupt and oppressive government which has lost the capacity for reform is the only option and sometimes, as in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, it works. One measure of how likely this is to work is that chance of a revolution actually improving things appears to be inversely correlated with the amount of bloodshed.
Hence there is more than a touch of irony as well as amusement in my main quote for today:
"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason!"
(Sir John Harington or Harrington, 1561-1612, known for his scholarship, biting satire, and for having invented the first flushing toilet. One of the occasions when he was banished was for a satirical work comparing the material this system was designed to remove with certain prominent politicians of the day.)
On a more humorous note:
How Many People Does It Take To Light a Guy Fawkes
Bonfire?
How many safety
inspectors does it take to light the bonfire?
Answer, four. One to light the match and three to hold the
fire extinguishers
How many civil
servants does it take to set fire to Guy Fawkes?
Answer, twenty-three. One to strike the match and twenty two to
fill in the paper work.
How many Apple
employees does it take to flame Guy Fawkes?
Answer, five. One to light the match and four to design the
t-shirt.
How many Microsoft
programmers does it take to start the bonfire?
None. Microsoft declares
darkness to be a new standard.
How many honest,
intelligent, responsible Labour MPs does it take to light a bonfire?
Answer: Both of them.
Comments
Of the conspiritors - Robert Gatsby,John Wright, Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham.
Guydo Falwes was arrested at the rented storage room beneath the House of Lords with the gunpoweder on Nov 5th though he gave his name as John Johnson.
While Fawkes maintained his silence the others fled. The king then authourised the use of torture on "johnson" - stating by letter " The gentler tortours [tortures] are to be first used unto him, et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur [and thus by steps extended to greater ones], and so God speed your good work." - Falwes lost his resolve to silence on 7th Nov
There was a fire fight at Holbeche House during which
John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Rockwood were shot dead, and Catesby and Persy were said to have been killed by a single lucky shot.
Wintour was also shot in the shoulder but survived.
Grant, Morgan, Rookwood and Wintour were then arrested.
Bates and Keyes were caught shortly after, as were Digby and Tresham.
The charge of high treason was proven and the sentance was announced by Sir Edward Coke (pronounced Cook)
Each of the condemned, shall be drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground. "He shall be put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both". He shall be hoised by the neck towards the heavens and cut down whilst still aware, his privy parts shall then be cut off and burnt before his eyes, and his bowels and heart then removed. Then the dismembered "parts of his body displayed so that they might become prey for the fowls of the air".
though Catsby and Percy were dead they were exhumed and decapitated, their heads displayed outside the house of lords on spikes.
Back then there was no objection to the sentance from the ECHR and so...
on Jan 30 1606 Everad Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant and Thomas Bates were tied to hurdles and dragged to St Pauls Churchyard where the rest of the sentance was carried out.
The next day Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rockwood, Robert Keyes and Guydo Falwes were dragged to the Old Palace Yard, Westminster.
Wintour went first, then Rockwook
Keyes jumped from the scaffolds ladder in an attempt to die quickly, rather than wait for the hangman to hoist him. His attempt failed, he was quickly cut down and led to the Quartering block.
Falwkes, despite being badly weakened from torture, also managed to jump from the ladder and managed to break his neck, so was "quartered" whilst already dead.
Littleton was executed at Stafford and Humphrey at Red Hill Worcester.
Henry Garnet was executed on 3 may 1606
At the next sitting of Parliament, the first after the plot, the Observance of 5th Nov Act 1605 act was passed making it mandatory to commemorate the event in services and sermons (this act was in force until 1859).
Well show me an American citizen who would be ruled by the British Monarchy, so some times it can.
Those who died in the firefight at Holebech House were the lucky ones.
However, the bloodbath which would have followed had the plot succeeded does not bear thinking about. And I don't just mean the people who would have died when parliament was blown up but the much larger numbers who would have been killed in the civil war and religious pogroms which would have followed.
My wife, who is a catholic herself, said to me this evening that what she was celebrating was the dreadful loss of life which was averted because the plot was discovered in time.
But sometimes there are no good options, only a choice of bad options.