Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot!Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below,
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d,
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring!
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip, hip, hoorah!
The man in the cellar
It’s London, 1605.
The streets are quiet, the air cold, and the heart of Parliament sits above a maze of stone and shadow.
Down below, a man waits in the dark — Guy Fawkes, soldier, conspirator, believer.
He’s not the mastermind, just the one willing to light the fuse.
For months, Fawkes and a small circle of Catholic rebels had hauled 36 barrels of gunpowder into a rented cellar beneath the House of Lords [1].
Their goal? End Protestant rule. Blow up the King, the royal family, and Parliament in one single burst.
But someone talked. A letter — anonymous, nervous — made its way to the authorities [2].
In the early hours of November 5, guards swept the building.
Some accounts say Fawkes was found wandering with a lantern, others that he was crouched right beside the kegs [3]. Either way, he was caught before dawn.
He didn’t give up names easily, but torture in the Tower of London eventually did its job [4].
The explosion never happened, but the idea of it still echoes centuries later.
Why he tried
England was exhausted — split by religion, power, and promises that kept breaking.
Catholics had expected King James I to ease their persecution. Instead, the laws stayed harsh [5].
Fawkes had fought for Catholic Spain before returning home. He believed England would never change without force [6]. So, when Robert Catesby laid out his plan to destroy Parliament, Fawkes became the man with the match.
He failed. But the government turned that failure into ritual.
Every November 5, the country celebrated its “deliverance.” Bonfires, fireworks, effigies of “the Guy” tossed into flames [7].
A national warning turned into a national party.
From villain to symbol
Centuries passed, and the story warped.
The traitor who tried to destroy Parliament became something else — a kind of folk antihero [8].
Burning the “Guy” once meant loyalty to the Crown. Later, it started to look like rebellion itself.
History loves to twist perspective.
One era’s traitor becomes another’s symbol for standing up to power.
The mask and the message
That shift exploded again in the 1980s, when Alan Moore and David Lloyd created V for Vendetta [9].
In their story, a masked revolutionary fights a fascist government in a near-future Britain — using the face of Guy Fawkes to hide his own.
“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh,” V says.
“Beneath this mask there is an idea. And ideas are bulletproof.”
The mask became a symbol — sleek, smirking, instantly recognizable.
After the 2005 film adaptation, it broke free from fiction [10].
Protesters wore it from London to Hong Kong. It showed up in Occupy Wall Street, hacker videos, and street demonstrations [11][12].
A centuries-old plot reborn as a digital-age emblem.
And here’s the twist: every “revolutionary” mask sold sends a royalty back to the corporation that owns the rights [12].
(See source 12 for details on mask licensing.)
Rebellion, now available at retail.
Still familiar
Four hundred years later, the anger feels familiar.
Different causes, same roots — mistrust, inequality, power that never listens [13].
The Gunpowder Plot wasn’t righteous, but it was born from desperation [14].
That’s the uncomfortable mirror it still holds up: when people stop believing in peaceful change, someone eventually reaches for the fuse.
The fire that never went out
Every November 5, bonfires still blaze across Britain [7][15].
Children chant “penny for the Guy” without knowing who he was. Fireworks crack over cities built on the same foundations Fawkes once tried to destroy.
Maybe that’s the real legacy — not the explosion, but the reminder.
Power and protest will always circle each other, just waiting for a spark.
So remember, remember… because forgetting is how it all starts again.
Sources (numbered citations correspond to the article)
- Historic Royal Palaces — “Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot.”
https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/guy-fawkes-and-the-gunpowder-plot/ - UK Parliament — “Gunpowder Plot – FAQs / Background.”
https://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-commons-faqs/gunpowder-plot/ - Royal Museums Greenwich — “Gunpowder Plot: The History Behind Bonfire Night.”
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/royal-history/gunpowder-plot-what-history-behind-bonfire-night - Historic Royal Palaces — “The Tower of London as a Prison.”
https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/tower-of-london-prison/ - Historic Royal Palaces Resource Pack (teacher timeline / context).
https://www.hrp.org.uk/media/2092/2018-10_gunpowderplot_resource.pdf - Historic Royal Palaces — Fawkes Biography Context.
https://www.hrp.org.uk/ - English Heritage — “5 Things: The Real Story of Bonfire Night.”
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/5-things-the-real-story-of-bonfire-night - Museum of London — “The Symbolism of Guy Fawkes.”
https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/symbolism-of-guy-fawkes/ - Comic Book Legal Defense Fund — “Adding V for Vendetta to Your Collection.”
https://cbldf.org/2022/05/adding-v-for-vendetta-to-your-library-or-classroom-collection/ - Museum of London — “Guy Fawkes & the Gunpowder Plot.”
https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/guy-fawkes-gunpowder-plot/ - KUER / NPR — “Don’t Be That Guy Fawkes.”
https://www.kuer.org/2012-06-11/from-our-readers-dont-be-that-guy-fawkes - BBC News — “Guy Fawkes mask profits go to Time Warner.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16038155 - Prison Service Journal (U.K.) — Protest symbolism and the corporate mask image.
https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/PSJ%20234%20November%202017.pdf - KB Journal (Kenyon College) — “Burke’s Identification and the Visual Identity of Anonymous.”
https://kbjournal.org/book/export/html/1071 - Museum of London — “Penny for the Guy? A Lost Bonfire Night Tradition.”
https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/penny-for-the-guy-lost-bonfire-night-tradition/