Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey Listener discretion advised. This is part two of our series on the Gunpowder plot. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, you should probably start there. On the evening of October twenty six five, a man walked through the streets of London with the weight of his treason jostling uneasily inside his coat pocket.
I like to imagine this man periodically grasping at the same patch of cloth on his chest as he made it through the throngs of Londoners casually strolling to their Wednesday evening dinner lands, a minor heart attack ensuing each time until he felt the envelopes reassuring crinkle underneath his layers of outerwear. Though even as his fingers brushed against the paper's edge, the letters contents likely kept the man
from feeling anything close to reassurance. The truth was the man was carrying not one, but two accounts of treason
on his person. The first belonged to his participation in the planned Catholic coup against the British Protestant government set to take place in Parliament in just ten days, on the fifth of November, the same plot that had a man named Guy Fox overseeing thirty six barrels of gunpowder underneath the floors of Parliament, just waiting for the order to give the whole building and everyone inside of it a fireworks show, the likes of which they had never
and undoubtedly would never see again. The second account of treason was not against the British government, but against the group behind the gunpowder plot itself. For in the rumpled envelope in the man's jacket pocket was not information for his co conspirators, but a warning for their enemy, whether it was cold feet or a sudden burst of humanity invading the man's conscience. The evening of October twenty six found this man stalking the streets of London in search
of the servant to one Lord Monteagle. Later, when recalling the encounter, the servant would only be able to characterize the man who had stopped him as a quote man of reasonable tall personage unquote. In the centuries to come, historians would come a little closer to establishing the man's true identity. Could it have been Thomas Percy, one of the five men who had first conspired to blow up Parliament alongside Guy Fox and Robert Catesby at the Duck
and Drake Inn in May six o four. If not him, was there a chance this mysterious man wasn't even related to the plot at all? Was he just a courier sent in someone else's stead, or is it possible, well, did this man even exist? Maybe Lord Monteagle staged this entire scene in his account to King James so as to distance himself from the knowledge he had otherwise how come to acquire. The truth will likely remain lost to history.
Who this man actually was walking through London with the letter in his pocket, or whether he had even existed at all, But the words of that letter, written in their hasty, near allegible scrawl, would be remembered long after the mysterious man who stopped Lord Monteagal's servant disappeared into the night. Quote, my Lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care
of your preservation. Therefore I would advise you to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this Parliament. For though there be no appearance of any stir yet, I say they shall receive a terrible blow. I'm Danis Schwartz, and this is noble blood. Upon receiving the rumpled letter from his servant, Lord Montagal wasn't entirely sure what to think.
On one hand, the late hour in which the note arrived, in conjunction with the poor penmanship and odd channels it had taken to get to him in the first place, all added up to something more akin to a prank than a real warning. After all, who would be crazy enough to actually conspire a terrible blow against the whole of Parliament? Well, if you need a quick recap as to exactly who was crazy enough to attempt to blow up Parliament, allow me to briefly bring you up to speed.
In response to Queen Elizabeth the First and King James's persecution of British Catholics in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a group of five Catholic recusants led by a man named Robert Catesby, met in London at the Duck and Drake Inn in May sixteen o four to discuss the beginnings of what would come to be known
as the Gunpowder Plot. Sitting at the table next to Catesby, where his second in command Thomas Wintour, the renowned swordsman Jack Wright, a guardsman of the Earl of Northumberland, Thomas Percy,
and notorious explosive as expert Guy Fox. Together the men agreed to plot an attack against Parliament and the King, a plot which took the form of Thomas Percy acquiring the storage space underneath the House of Parliament so Guy Fox could pose as a footman named John Johnson, who would then smuggle thirty six barrels of gunpowder hidden underneath piles of firewood into its depths, to be set off on the inning day of Parliament when the King would
be present November five, six o five, after which Catesby, Wintour and Right would spread news of the King's death in the Midlands, kidnapped the King's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and established her as England's next Catholic ruler. And while Lord Montegal likely had no prior knowledge of the plot and therefore questioned its authenticity, his servant held no such doubts. As it happened, Monteagal servant actually had close family ties to the family of one of the original conspirators, Jack
Wright the Swordsman. So when Lord Montegal eventually decided to air on the side of caution and send word to warn his colleagues, his servant had already sent word to
write relaying the betrayal within their ranks. Upon unreceiving word from Right that they had been betrayed, Katesby and his second in command, Win Tour, immediately tried to weed out the trader in their ranks, but this proved to be a flaw in their own design, because while Percy and Fox had been left to deal with the practical measures of securing a location for the gunpowder to be placed to ensure maximum destruction, Katesby and win Tour had been
busy recruiting additional conspirators to help in the plot, and by mid October the number of plotters had risen from the original five that had met at the Duck and Drake to a sizeable thirteen. Of course, more help also meant more mouths to keep quiet, and if the letter was any indication, As the date of the attack drew closer, at least one of the men began to get cold feet. In the ten intervening days between the discovery of the Monteagal Letter and the opening of Parliament. Chaos and panic
rose like a fog in the London streets. The leaked letter caused tensions among the conspirators to run higher with each passing day, until finally some of the newer recruits began to openly voice their doubts to Ktesby. In the end, even Thomas Wintoor all but begged Ktesby to call off the plot, but predictably, he couldn't be swayed. The end was near and he wanted to see it through, no
matter the cost. With the clock running down, on the evening of November fourth, Ktesby and Wright rode off for the Midlands, getting in position ready to enact the rebellion that would follow the initial blow to parliam Mint, which would take place the following day. But back in London, authorities were already beginning to unravel their plans days previously.
On the first of November, King James became privy to the contents of the so called Monteagle Letter, and by November four he had guards searching at the Palace of Westminster for anything that could cause the letters ominous blow to Parliament. It was then that officials stumbled upon a peculiar seller directly below the floors of Parliament, stacked Florida ceiling with bundles of firewood. Upon this first inspection, authorities
could find no reason for suspicion. While its appearance was undoubtedly odd, there was no law specifically forbidding the storage of what likely seemed like an excessive amount of firewood. In the sellers available for rent in the Palace of Westminster. There was a man some sort of servant that happened to be near the seller at the time of inspection, but this was similarly not cause for any overt sense
of alarm. It was only after the inspectors left the scene that they discovered the peculiar seller in question belonged to none other than Thomas Percy, a man who was coincidentally good friends with Lord Monteagle, and whose Catholic sympathies were of relatively common knowledge. That friendship, for the record, is why some suspect the man who delivered the letter to be Percy or one of his servants working on
his behalf. That connection led the king to demand a second search of the seller, whereupon they happened on a far more anister scene than they had uncovered during their first investigation. When authorities arrived at the cell for a second time, the servant that had been present earlier was there again, only now he had undergone a rather ominous costume change. The servant, who identified himself as John Johnson, was dressed in riding clothes, as if ready to make
a quick getaway. When searched, investigators found a watch and long stemmed matches hidden in the folds of his cloak, leading them once again to take a look at the copious amount of firewood stacked in the cellar before them. It was then that they discovered, underneath the bundles of wood lay thirty six barrels of gunpowder, waiting for one long stemmed match to spark the devastating blow to Parliament.
By the early hours of November five five, the Gunpowder plot was one stiff breeze away from complete and utter collapse. The first call for arrest was for the man whose name was on the lease of the gunpowder filled seller, Thomas Percy. Unbeknownst to authorities, Percy was already well on his way to meet Kateesby in the Midlands to help
enact the second phase of their plot. But while Percy rode to see what he believed would be the gunpowder plots inevitable success all across London, the remaining conspirators were taking to horseback in a an altogether much less optimistic and more panicked state of mind. With Fox in custody, the writing was on the wall. It was only a matter of time before the authorities came barreling down their doors.
Following his arrest, Fox, known as John Johnson at this point refused to give up his real name or the names of his co conspirators. Instead, he calmly claimed that the idea was his own. Refusing to show any remorse for his actions, he told his interrogators the devil and not God, was to blame for the discovery of the plot.
After nearly two days of interrogation, on November six, King James finally ordered for the man who claimed to be John Johnson to be taken to the Tower of London to be tortured until he gave up information pertaining to the failed attack on Parliament. Within a day of being put on the torture rack, John Johnson revealed himself to be Guy Fox, and by November seven. The oath of secrecy he had sworn at the Duck and Drake Inn a year and a half prior had all but crumbled.
While Fox began to crack. Some hundred miles north of London, Ktesby and his men were preparing for a final stand of their own. By this point, Thomas Percy had managed to find his kinsmen, but the joy in their reunion was cut short after another conspirator delivered the horrifying news of Fox's capture. The gunpowder hadn't gone off the Parliament House and all those who were meant to be inside remained unharmed, and the recusant revolution they had been willing
to kill for was crumbling under their feet. But even in the face of their inevitable failure, Katesby was nothing if not consistent. Instead of fleeing, as many of the other conspirators attempted to do, he decided to double down on the second part of their plan, spreading word that King James had died and urging his Catholic brethren to rise up and unite to place a Catholic leader on
the throne. Unfortunately for Catesby, even the false news of King James's death could only seem to rally about forty men to his cause, not nearly enough to stand a chance against the hundreds that were preparing to ride out against them the next morning. On the evening of November seven, Exhausted, demoralized, and chilled from trekking through the wet British countryside, Catesby and his men built a fire and set up camp
outside hul Bish House in Staffordshire. With mud and damp clinging to everything from their clothes to their supplies, the men decided to use what little remained of their collective brain power to dry out their gunpowder next to an open bonfire, which is how a little less than two days later than planned, the Gunpowder plot conspirators finally got the explosion they had been waiting for. Unfortunately for them, the blast took place approximately a hundred and thirty miles
from their intended target. The explosion caused several of the men present to suffer from burns of varying degrees. It blinded one of them, and left all of them with a significantly depleted supply of gunpowder with which to defend themselves from the authorities who would reach them by the following morning, as the few remaining men who hadn't yet deserted and were relatively unburned enough to fight, gathered to regroup. When they asked what they were to do, Catesby had
but one answer, we mean here to die. At eleven o'clock the next morning, the High Sheriff of Worcestershire arrived at Hulbush House with upwards of two hundred men, ready to face off with Katesby's meager brigade. But for as much firepower as the high Sheriff brought, the ensuing shootout was over in a matter of minutes. Of the five men who had begun the gunpowder trees and all those months before at the Duck and Drake Inn, three of them would die on the grounds of hull Bush House
that morning. Thomas Wintour would escape death with just a gunshot wound to his shoulder, but Jack Wright, Thomas Percy, and Robert Catesby were all struck down in the musket fire. Fox, of course, was in the midst of confessing after his ordeal and during the torture rack in the Tower of London. When they recovered Katesby's body, they discovered he had used his final moments to crawl toward a picture of the Virgin Mary, holding on to his beliefs as he passed
from one life to the next. In the coming weeks, Wintour and Fox would both be sentenced to death for their treason, and would both ultimately hang from a noose in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, mere feet away from the building they had attempted to destroy. Days before
their execution. On January twenty third, sixteen o six, Parliament, under King James the First would pass the Thanksgiving Act, the yearly observance every fifth of November commemorating the day the monarchy was saved from the group of Catholic recusants who sought to blow up Parliament. Four hundred years later, that celebration would morph into the campy pyrotechnic display known as Bonfire Night that contin used to be celebrated annually
every November five across the UK. Though the historical basis of the holiday stayed the same, the ways in which it's now celebrated, and consequently what the holiday has come to mean, have absolutely changed over time. What used to serve as an annual reminder of the day the monarchy prevailed over an English Catholic act of terrorism has shifted into a mostly secular holiday. But more than that, Foxes legacy has shifted from universally hated villain to more rebel
we love to hate. The popularity of the Guy Fox mask in pop culture and the resulting impact on his legacy is just one example of the undeniable truth that history, no matter how hard we try to carve it in stone, will always be subjective. The legacy of the Gunpowder Treason will likely continue to change, just as it has for hundreds of years, but there is one fact that is for certain. As long as it's fun to gather together and light things on fire, history will almost certainly remember.
Remember the five of November. That was the end of our two part series on the failed Gunpowder Plot, But stick around after a sponsor break to hear a little bit more about how Guy Fox's image has been used in the four hundred years since his execution. Even if today was the first time you heard of the Gunpowder Plot, chances are you've seen Guy Fox's face, or at least a version of it. A stark white face, slits for eyes, prominent cheekbones, and inhumanly symmetrical facial hair that looks like
it's been drawn on with a marker. The Guy Fox mask is a staple at most Halloween stores, especially since v for Vendetta. Its distinct lack of humanity in a face meant to embody the every man, or in this case, every guy, makes it all the more creepy, though in reality, this may be more of a commentary on how Guy Fox's image has been replicated over the centuries, rather than an actual attempt to depict the real face of the
real Guy Fox. The truth is, while there are some written accounts about Fox's appearance, any physical representation of his likeness are really just images that have been passed through a few too many games of historical telephone, each iteration meant to make him more villain like than the last.
In Antonio Frasier's excellent biography on the Gunpowder Plot, she describes Fox as being a quote tall, powerfully built man with thick, reddish brown hair, a flowing mustache in the tradition of the time, and a bushy, reddish brown beard. Historical prints of Fox border on cartoonish, but most portray him as tall and thin, with long, angular facial features. And a dubious looking mustache, all features I'd like to point out that could describe more than a handful of
classic childhood cartoon villains. The fact that artists have portrayed Fox in this way is not wholly surprising, after all, he is burned in effigy on a yearly basis, but it does make the emergence of the Guy Fox mask that much more intriguing. The Guy Fox mask as we know it today didn't really come into massive popularity until after the release of the movie based on the graphic
novel Fifa Vendetta in two thousand five. Although the film is a now relatively well known cultural touchstone, it didn't break any box office numbers. In fact, a comic con that year, Warner Brothers gave out free Guy Fox masks from the film to promote the movie. The result of that promotion would be the birth of a meme on four Chan in two thousand and six called epic Fail Guy, which showed a stick figure finding a Guy Fox mask
in a garbage bin. From four Chan. The activist group known as Anonymous would adopt the mask to use as their face, spurring other protest movements to begin to use the Guy Fox ask as the symbol of anarchy and rebellion that the comic and eventual two thousand five movie
adaptation made it out to be in the first place. Frankly, there are so many layers to this, like how the Occupy Wall Street movement in two thousand eleven used the Guy Fox mask, which was produced and sold by Time Warner, to embody an anti capitalist regime, or how Guy Fox himself was not fighting for anarchy but for what has to be the least punk rock institution of all time,
the Catholic Church. But ultimately, it all boils down to how Guy Fox's legacy has simultaneously continued to change over time, yet somehow it always remains sort of the same. The rolls Guy Fox has embodied over the last four hundred years have run the gambit from villain to anti hero, but his characterizations were never meant to embody body who
he was as a singular person. Instead, Guy Fox has always been the face of a group, whether it be Catesby and his co conspirators or the entire anonymous organization. The use of Fox's name in public discourse has always been to condemn or celebrate the actions of a collective,
not a singular man. It's enough to make you wonder what Guy would have thought about his legacy, if you would have resented being forever the face of a collective, or if he would have relished the sacrifice of his personhood in favor of continuing to represent something far bigger than one person ever could. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Wortz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Miura Hayward, Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.