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Fawkes, continued from page 47

The other plotters were quickly discovered. Four of them were shot dead by the Sheriff and the three
survivors were taken to the Tower where Fawkes was already a prisoner.

A special tribunal was convened on January 27th. Fawkes and the others were speedily tried,
convicted of treason, and condemed to death. Their punishment was to be the horror of hanging,
drawing, and quartering, meted out to traitors. The three survivors suffered the ultimate punishment on
January 30th, 1606. Fawkes' execution was scheduled for the 31st of January.

It was intended that he be executed opposite the Parliament building, but weakened by torture, Fawkes
either fell or jumped from the gallows as he climbed to meet the hangman. He broke his neck in the fall,
thereby depriving the Crown of carrying out the ultimate punishment. However, to set an example of the
consequences of treason, his corpse was still quartered and the body parts were sent "to the four
corners of the kingdom" as an example to other would-be traitors.

James I then set November 5th as an official day of remembrance and the commemoration of Fawkes'
subsequent failure and arrest. The commemoration continues throughout England today, even though
the "official nature" of the event came to an end in 1859.

Fawkes also gave his name to the word "guy" as an alternate term for an effigy. Today on the 5th of
November bonfires continue to be lit, fireworks have been added, and small guys are sold to masked
children who burn them , after they repreat the centuries old phrase of begging "a penny for the guy".

As for Fawkes, there was to be no grave. The 35-year-old former soldier's remains would have been
exhibited to the public, and what was left of the body, after exhibition at the site before the Tower of
London, would have been burned and thrown into the Thames River.

Above: The Tower of London. The room where Fawkes was interrogated is still called the Fawkes Room.
Image IStock by Cristian Mircea Balate
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