The Original Guy

Abstract “Guy,” a French name brought across the Channel by Normans in 1066, had become a familiar English name long before Guy Fawkes was born in 1570. The name was memorable enough that while supervising delivery of gunpowder to the disused cellar under the House of Lords, Guy Fawkes adopted a bland, inconspicuous pseudonym: John Johnson. If he had maintained that pseudonym until his death a few months later, this book wouldn’t exist. “You johns” couldn’t succeed like “you guys.” Fawkes was born to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. The father died when Guy was 8, so the rest of his upbringing was presumably Catholic. Catholic plots to overthrow Elizabeth’s government (and then James’s government after her death in 1603) continued in frequency and intensity, though never successful. Fawkes meanwhile embarked on a military career, fighting with distinction for many years in the English Regiment of the Catholic Spanish Brigade in the Netherlands. For his expertise in undermining and gunpowder, Robert Catesby recruited him for the most horrendous Catholic plot ever, to blow up the House of Lords with Lords, Commons, government officials, and royalty assembled for the opening day of Parliament. At the last minute a search party caught Fawkes red-handed, turning him over to anti-Catholic King James VI for interrogation, and he soon admitted his real name. Modern experiments confirm that 36 barrels of gunpowder would indeed have destroyed the House of Lords and everyone in it.