It's Guy Fawkes Day!

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

On the 5th November 1605 Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars of the English Houses of Parliament with several dozen barrels of gunpowder, Guy Fawkes was subsequently tried as a traitor for plotting against the government and then
executed. The form of the execution was one of the most horrendous ever practised (hung ,drawn and quartered) reflecting the serious nature of the crime. This nursery rhyme served to ensure that this form of treason would never be forgotten hence the words " Remember , remember the 5th of November" sometimes referred to as 'Please to remember the fifth of November'. It serves as a warning to each new generation that treason would never be forgiven or forgotten. In England the 5th of November is commemorated each year with fireworks and bonfires culminating with the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes (the guy) by children on the top of the bonfire. The 'guys' are made by the children by stuffing old clothes with newspapers to look like a man - it is traditional for British children to display their 'guys' to passers by asking for " A penny for the guy". The money received to be spent on fireworks for Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawke's night) celebrations on 5th November!

The Fifth Of November And Guy Fawkes.
(Vol. xviii., p. 450.)

In an 1891 edition of the children's paper, St. Nicholas, a British child wrote to the editors that Guy Fawkes Day was a thoroughly boys' day, although she got to participate in the fun because she had five brothers:

Dear St. Nicholas: I am writing to tell you all about Guy Fawkes Day, because the little boys and girls in America do not have a Guy Fawkes Day, and perhaps they might like to hear about it. You see, Guy Fawkes Day is thoroughly a boys' day—girls have nothing at all to do with it — but though I am a girl I have five brothers, and therefore generally share in the fun.

The day is the 5th of November, and about the middle of October all the shops (stores, as you say in America) begin to show fireworks and masks in their windows. Now, I dare say you will like to hear about the " masks." Well, they are faces made of a sort of composition, painted most hideously, generally with big noses. These are purchased for the large sum of one penny (two cents in American money) by all the little boys, who wear them about the streets. After this has gone on for about a week or a fortnight, Guy Fawkes Day really comes.

At about ten or eleven o'clock, on the 5th, you hear a great deal of noise going on in the streets, and cries of " Guy, Guy, Guy, Guy, Guy," as fast as it can be gabbled (or rather shouted). Then you see a troop of street urchins with paper caps and paper streamers, singing, while two of them carry a chair on which is tied an effigy of Guy Fawkes, with one of the aforesaid " masks," and an old hat and coat. The boys come and stand in front of the houses and sing:

" Please to remember
The Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
I see no good reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot! "

Another song was :

" Holler, boys, holler, boys, make the bells ring ; Holler, boys, holler, boys, God save the King."

"The king" means James I., and the words are now changed into "God save the Queen."

You see Guy Fawkes Day is a very, very old custom; it dates back to 1605, when it is said that some conspirators tried to blow up the king and Parliament.

After dark all the boys have bonfires and fireworks, not so much in the town as in the suburbs, where there are back gardens in which to burn the stuffed effigy and to set off the fireworks. Good-by,

Yours lovingly, Margaret Alice B .

Guy Fawkes Day in Childrens Literature: two of my favorites are Hardings' Luck, and House of Arden by E. Nesbit, deleted reference to a book from Joan Aiken's Wolves of Willoughby Chase series). (I thought I'd deleted this reference before posting, as when I went to check which book I was remembering, I realized I was remembering incorrectly. There is a treasonous plot to blow up the kind, but it's part of her alternative history, not Guy Fawkes)

You can read Harding's Luck online for free, as well as The House of Arden and I heartily recommend them both (though if you don't like magic in your books, you won't like these)- Chapters VII and VIII are the two where Guy Fawkes is featured.

The Nesbit books are a bit more accurate when dealing with history. Aiken's books are not really even intended to be historical fiction.

Guy Fawkes comes up in chapters VIII and IX in House of Arden- because the two stories intersect, it's essentially the same event but told from two different points of view. In Harding's Luck, the lame Dickie goes back in time, and in House of Arden the brother and sister Elfrida and Eldred do- they are related to Dickie and the three of them sometimes end up in the same time period together, although in House of Arden they never quite realize that each of them is from another time. They are aided by a small and irritable mole-like creature known as the Mouldiwarp who is on the Arden coat of arms. Elfrida and Eldred are hunting for the lost Arden treasure so they can restore the family fortunes and fix up the ancestral home.

It sounds more confusing than it is, and E. Nesbit always tells a good story. Here's a section from The House of Arden:

I always have thought, and I always shall think, that it was the eavesdropping of that tiresome old tutor, Mr. Parados–or Parrot-nose–which caused all the mischief. But Elfrida has always believed, and always will believe, that the disaster was caused by her knowing too much history. That is why she is so careful to make sure that no misfortune shall ever happen on that account, any way. That is one of the reasons why she never takes a history prize at school. "You never know," she says. And, in fact, when it comes to a question in an historical examination, she never does know.

This was how it happened. Elfrida, now that she was no longer running about in the garden, remembered the question that she had been asking herself over the embroidery frame, and it now seemed sensible to ask the question of some one who could answer it. So she said–

"I say, Cousin Richard, what day is it?"

Elfrida understood him to say that it was the fifth of November.

"Is it really?" she said. "Then it's Guy Fawkes day. Do you have fireworks?" And in pure lightness of heart began to hum–

"Please to remember
The Fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot."

"Tis not a merry song, cousin," said Cousin Richard, "nor a safe one. 'Tis best not to sing of treason."

"But it didn't come off, you know, and he's always burnt in the end," said Elfrida.

"Are there more verses?" Cousin Dick asked.

"No."

"I wonder what treason the ballad deals with?" said the boy.

"Don't you know?" It was then that Elfrida made the mistake of showing off her historical knowledge. "I know. And I know some of the names of the conspirators, too, and who they wanted to kill, and everything."

"Tell me," said Cousin Richard idly.

"The King hadn't been fair to the Catholics, you know," said Elfrida, full of importance, "so a lot of them decided to kill him and the Houses of Parliament. They made a plot–there were a whole lot of them in it. They said Lord Arden was, but he wasn't, and some of them were to pretend to be hunting, and to seize the Princess Elizabeth and proclaim her Queen, and the rest were to blow the Houses of Parliament up when the King went to open them."

"I never heard this tale from my tutor," said Cousin Richard laughing. "Proceed, cousin."

"Well, Mr. Piercy took a house next the Parliament House, and they dug a secret passage to the vaults under the Parliament Houses; and they put three dozen casks of gunpowder there and covered them with faggots. And they would have been all blown up, only Mr. Tresham wrote to his relation, Lord Monteagle, that they were going to blow up the King and–"

"What King?" said Cousin Richard.

"King James the First," said Elfrida. "Why–what–" for Cousin Richard had sprung to his feet, and old Parrot-nose had Elfrida by the wrist.

He sat down on the seat and drew her gently till she stood in front of him–gently, but it was like the hand of iron in the velvet glove (of which, no doubt, you have often read).

"Now, Mistress Arden," he said softly, "tell me over again this romance that you tell your cousin."

Elfrida told it.

"And where did you hear this pretty story?" he asked.

And in the end, of course, it turns out it is the very fifth of November when the Gunpowder Plot was discovered, and while it is foiled, a number of the wrong people end up imprisoned in the Tower:

And I can't explain it at all–because, of course, Elfrida knew as well as I do that it all happened three hundred years ago–or, if you prefer to put it that way, that it had never happened, and that anyway, it was Mr. Tresham's letter to Lord Monteagle, and not Elfrida's singing of that silly rhyme, that had brought the Ardens and all these other gentlemen to the Tower and to the shadow of death. And yet she felt that it was she who had betrayed them. She felt also that if she had betrayed a base plot, she ought to be glad, and she was not glad. She had taken advantage of having been born so much later than all these people, and of having been rather good at history to give away the lives of all these nobles and gentlemen. That they were traitors to King and Parliament made no manner of difference. It was she, as she felt but too bitterly, who was the traitor. And in the thick-walled room in the Tower, where the name of Raleigh was still fresh in its carving, Elfrida lay awake, long after Lady Arden and Edred were sleeping peacefully, and hated herself, calling herself a Traitor, a Coward, and an Utter Duffer.

Guy Fawkes was put to death in thorough and gruesome fashion, as were most of the other conspirators- condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Fawkes, according to at least one site I found, actually managed to avoid the drawn and quartered bit-traiters were hanged, but NOT until dead- they were usually removed while still alive to endure the remaining punishments. Guy Fawkes leapt from the scaffold before the rope was removed so that he died by hanging.

There is some feeling in England these days, I do not know how widespread, that it's really not in keeping with modern sensibilities and tastes to celebrate Guy Fawkes' death by making effigies of him, singing about his death, and tossing the 'guy' on a bonfire.

At least sometimes in the past, the Pope was also burned in effigy. There is in existence a proclamation from George Washington condemning what he called a ridiculous and childish custom, and the proclamation continued, saying that General Washington:

cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in this army so void of common sense as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this juncture, at a time when we are soliciting and have really obtained the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, -whom we ought to consider as brethren embarked in the same cause, the defence of the general liberty of America. At such a juncture and in such circumstances, to be insulting their religion is so monstrous as not to be suffered or excused ; indeed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy success over the common enemy in Canada.