Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes is now officially over. For days now, people have been letting off fireworks of varying degrees of intensity, most of which culimated yesterday (officially the day). Some of them were quite interesting, though we aren't all that into fireworks, being big fans of a decent Queensland thunderstorm, which kind of overshadows pretty much anything fireworks can manage.

And we are fairly boring when it comes to the idea of fireworks let off in and around people's homes. We are quite fond of the Australian laws which indicate that only very carefully trained people who really know what they are doing can let off explosives. Such restrictions may dampen the enjoyment for some of the populace with mild pyromanic tendencies, but they tend to have more of their appendages attached as a result. We think that is probably a good thing, on the whole.

It's obvious that the English think such a view is a bit quaint. Mark explained the Australian practice of requiring people to have fairly rigorous certification at the lunch table at Wycliffe today. The response from the English was, "How much training do you need to light a match?" English fondness for amateurism over professionalism comes through again. (Mark's response was that it wasn't the match so much as the gunpowder that was the focus of the training. The American on the table suggested it was possibly 'the running away part'. When worlds collide.)

So, we weren't terribly excited by Guy Fawkes. But it is an intriguing idea. In 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament and so end Protestant rule in England. It was essentially a terrorist action. Yet, it became a national 'holiday' where people get to let off fireworks to symbolically commemmorate the gunpowder used in the plot. How things have changed. I simply cannot imagine 9/11 becoming the kind of holiday event where people destroy model planes or model buildings, or something similar. The idea is inconceivable. In some ways we see the world very differently from people of just a couple of centuries ago.

Still, a kind of holiday it became, involving fireworks and the eating of baked potatoes, I believe, and all vaguely connected with celebrating the deliverance of British Parliament.

But there's an interesting twist. It seems that, at least in the early 1830's, Guy Fawkes Day became a kind of 'let's blow up bishops' event. The focus switched from any kind of rememberance of a plot to blow up parliament (if that still remained even then), to a great outpouring of anger against the bishops of England. The bishops had just stymied the Great Reform Act, which would have allowed more people to be involved in the 'democratic' process in British government (it was passed in 1832), and they were not popular among the middle and lower classes. The bill had passed through the lower house of Parliament, but in the upper house (the House of Lords) the bishops were instrumental in its defeat.

On Guy Fawkes in 1830 (or it might have been 1831), the typical Guy Fawkes jingle of "Remember, remember the 5th of November..." was changed to:

"Remember, remember,
That God is the sender
Of every good gift known to man.
But the devil to spite us
Sent fellows in mitres
Who rob us of all that they can".

Effigies of bishops were burnt, some on the premises of the large castle-like buildings the bishops lived in. Dead cats, rocks, rotting fruit, all manner of other things were hurled through their windows (particularly the worst offenders - some were more sympathetic to reform than others) and their coaches rocked by mobs.

So Guy Fawkes, far from being a celebration of the English Protestant dream with bishops as the great guardians of the flock, became about mob violence against bishops. In a sense, it was an attempt to 'blow up' the House of Lords. A strange turn of events and one which Fawkes may have found ironic.

But then, the English do irony so very well. JMB