What if the Gunpowder Plot would have been sucessful?

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DaMaMaXiMuS

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Hello Everyone,

Has anyone heard of the Gunpowder Plot? It was a group of consiprators among which included Guy Fawkes, who wanted to blow up parlimment and King James I. I had heard of Guy Fawkes in the past, but the story I was given was no where near what happened.

Apparently, the conspirators were Catholic extremist who where angry King James I and the predominately protestant parliment because they didn’t change laws imposed by Elizabeth I against Catholics. Part of the plot was to have one of the Kings daughters who was heir to the throne marry a Catholic Noblemen.

Obviously, they were trying to get England to be Catholic again. I wonder how different things would have been here in the U.S. if this conspiracy would have been successful.
 
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DaMaMaXiMuS:
Hello Everyone,

Has anyone heard of the Gunpowder Plot? It was a group of consiprators among which included Guy Fawkes, who wanted to blow up parlimment and King James I. I had heard of Guy Fawkes in the past, but the story I was given was no where near what happened.

Apparently, the conspirators were Catholic extremist who where angry King James I and the predominately protestant parliment because they didn’t change laws imposed by Elizabeth I against Catholics. Part of the plot was to have one of the Kings daughters who was heir to the throne marry a Catholic Noblemen.

Obviously, they were trying to get England to be Catholic again. I wonder how different things would have been here in the U.S. if this conspiracy would have been successful.
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Did this subject by any chance come from the fact that the new movie “V for Vendetta” partly concerns these events? Just wondering. 😃

As for the question, I think that we just wouldn’t acknowledge religious freedom as one of the major foundations of our country. America would still exist because it was founded on more than just the potential of religious freedom.
 
It is never acceptable to do evil so that good may come out of it.

Bringing good out of a bad event is not within man’s power. Only God can do that.

Who knows what would have happened. An extremist councellor could have seized control of the government. Protestants could have rioted and killed even more of us than they did. Its so tough to predict what ifs in history.
 
The British were fairly ferociously anti-Catholic (as they had showed when Mary Tudor aka Bloody Mary had tried to reCatholicise the country about 50 years earlier), so they wouldn’t have changed religions.

What probably would’ve happened is James I’s older son would’ve come to the throne instead of the younger (who was the later Charles I who had such problems with Parliament and whose reign ended with the Civil War.)

Mind you he still would’ve died fairly young, so perhaps Charles would’ve taken over and things would’ve panned out exactly the same anyway.
 
I_A_:
It is never acceptable to do evil so that good may come out of it.

Bringing good out of a bad event is not within man’s power. Only God can do that.
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An excellent point​

Who knows what would have happened. An extremist councellor could have seized control of the government. Protestants could have rioted and killed even more of us than they did. Its so tough to predict what ifs in history.
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Never - and that is as it should be.​

The Plot was the work of a minority of hotheads, albeit hotheads with some excuse: up to a point. In 1588, most English Catholics ralled to the defence of their country against the danger of a Spanish invasion. It seems most unlikely that regicide and treason and murder (which is what the plotters were conspiring to commit) would have awakened anything but horror in most English Catholics.

What was involved was the blowing up of Parliament while it was in session. Catholic and Calvinist apologiae for regicide created considerable scandal - even though the notion that a tyrant can be killed goes back to John of Salisbury (which is probably where some of the Protestant theorising in favour of its allowability came from)

These people were not martyrs, and have not been reckoned as such; Venerable Henry Garnet S.J., who heard the confessions of some of the plotters, did not believe himself able to act on what he knew - which is why he was executed. (AFAIK, confessions of grave crimes had become privileged by the seal of confession just like other confessional knowledge only recently - had the plot been in in 1585, he would have had no defence at all against a charge of treason, even in RC canon law.) Executed Catholic =/= martyr ##
 
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LilyM:
The British were fairly ferociously anti-Catholic (as they had showed when Mary Tudor aka Bloody Mary had tried to reCatholicise the country about 50 years earlier), so they wouldn’t have changed religions.

What probably would’ve happened is James I’s older son would’ve come to the throne instead of the younger (who was the later Charles I who had such problems with Parliament and whose reign ended with the Civil War.)

Mind you he still would’ve died fairly young, so perhaps Charles would’ve taken over and things would’ve panned out exactly the same anyway.
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British =/= English.​

Britain in 1558 was made up of two sovereign states, not one. In addition to which, Wales (since 1283 IIRC) and all Ireland (since 1537) were subject to England.

On no account is England to be confused with Scotland. Scotland was, and always had been, an independent kingdom - it was no more part of England than is China or Portugal.

The two countries also had separate Reformations - although there was plenty of influence of either on the other.

In 1605, the then king of Scotland, James VI, became king of England as well. The Parliaments of the two countries were independent of each other, as were the Churches (both Protestant) & the legal systems. The union of the Crowns was not succeeded by a union of the Parliaments until 1707. ##
 
Gottle of Geer said:
## British =/= English.

Britain in 1558 was made up of two sovereign states, not one. In addition to which, Wales (since 1283 IIRC) and all Ireland (since 1537) were subject to England.

On no account is England to be confused with Scotland. Scotland was, and always had been, an independent kingdom - it was no more part of England than is China or Portugal.

The two countries also had separate Reformations - although there was plenty of influence of either on the other.

In 1605, the then king of Scotland, James VI, became king of England as well. The Parliaments of the two countries were independent of each other, as were the Churches (both Protestant) & the legal systems. The union of the Crowns was not succeeded by a union of the Parliaments until 1707. ##
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I stand corrected Gottle, slip of the brain there - of course you’re quite right, England and Scotland were distinct countries even after James VI of Scotland became James I of England as well.

Sort of back on topic, it is quite interesting to think of historical events such as the Reformation, Waterloo and so on and wonder what if … in fact there’s a whole genre of fiction based on such scenarios called ‘alternative history’
 
Gottle of Geer:
The Plot was the work of a minority of hotheads, albeit hotheads with some excuse: up to a point.
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An English priest I know says there is a book that questions the whole Plot.From what I remember, the Government seized on this ill-conceived plot conceived by, as you say, a minority of hotheads, and blew it out of all proportion (excuse the pun). They used it as an excuse to round up and execute many notable yet innocent Catholics.
 
Hey Spyder,

Yes it certainly did. But as I said I had heard of the gunpowder plot previously. The movie just caused me to look into it further.
 
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DaMaMaXiMuS:
Hello Everyone,

Has anyone heard of the Gunpowder Plot? It was a group of consiprators among which included Guy Fawkes, who wanted to blow up parlimment and King James I. I had heard of Guy Fawkes in the past, but the story I was given was no where near what happened.

Apparently, the conspirators were Catholic extremist who where angry King James I and the predominately protestant parliment because they didn’t change laws imposed by Elizabeth I against Catholics. Part of the plot was to have one of the Kings daughters who was heir to the throne marry a Catholic Noblemen.

Obviously, they were trying to get England to be Catholic again. I wonder how different things would have been here in the U.S. if this conspiracy would have been successful.
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Peace.

I also “heard” the origin of referring to people as “guys” (ever go to a restaurant and have the waitress welcome everyone at the table, including the women, as “guys”?) originated with Guy Fawkes, as if to determine if you were with “Guy” (i.e., one of the “Guys”) trying to blow up Parliament.

Don’t press my knowledge on ECF, but give me worthless trivia! 🙂

Peace.
 
Eileen T:
An English priest I know says there is a book that questions the whole Plot.From what I remember, the Government seized on this ill-conceived plot conceived by, as you say, a minority of hotheads, and blew it out of all proportion (excuse the pun). They used it as an excuse to round up and execute many notable yet innocent Catholics.
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Interestingly, just this weekend I heard Fr. Peter Milward, an expert in Shakespeare and his possible Catholicism, and by extension also well-versed in the religious climate in Shakespeare’s England, who commented that the Gunpower Plot never happened. I assume that he meant by that that what actually happened was different than the conventional understaning of what happened. Now I’m curious…
 
Eileen T:
An English priest I know says there is a book that questions the whole Plot.From what I remember, the Government seized on this ill-conceived plot conceived by, as you say, a minority of hotheads, and blew it out of all proportion (excuse the pun). They used it as an excuse to round up and execute many notable yet innocent Catholics.
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Well James’ reign wasn’t going too crashhot at the time - he wasn’t terribly popular for different reasons, and it’s quite possible that it was discovered earlier and allowed to proceed almost to completion to look more damning and gain more sympathy for the King.
 
Eileen T:
An English priest I know says there is a book that questions the whole Plot.From what I remember, the Government seized on this ill-conceived plot conceived by, as you say, a minority of hotheads, and blew it out of all proportion (excuse the pun). They used it as an excuse to round up and execute many notable yet innocent Catholics.
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Many ? Not really - there were only about twenty conspirators and as many executions.​

The Plot has indeed been questioned, more than once - I think it is one of those things that it would be very convenient for Catholics to be guiltless of; but if they were guilty, then that is all there is to it. It’s not as though Catholics in England between 1570 and 1605 were free of treason - they were not. Treason is the worst crime one can possibly commit - and it was punished as such; and a good many things counted as treasons; not just in England. There is nothing implausible in the concept of Catholics committing treason - plenty had been executed for it before the Reformation. The Jesuits had a well-deserved bad name for meddling in affairs of state: some of them definitely plotted the replacement of Elizabeth I or by Philip II of Spain. Unfortunately, the really guilty ones escaped.

Thanks to these abandoned wretches, English Catholicism took over three hundred years to become accepted as something better than a traitor’s religion. It’s true the death penalty was severe - but so it was in many countries, in order to emphasise the horror with which this atrocious and most unnatural of crimes was regarded.

It’s worth bearing in mind that in both Protestant England & Catholic France those accused of treason were presumed to be guilty until & unless they could clear themselves - this was precisely because of the revulsion such crimes aroused; it was considered that the safety of the realm was more important than the acquittal of someone who might, after all, be guilty of treason even if he had been cleared of it.

There is no reason to think these people were being especially harshly dealt with, whatever their religion. They seem to be unjustly treated only if we anachronistically apply standard of justice and humanity to that time wth which it was unacquainted. There was no injustice in any of what happened to the plotters. There is a very simple way to escape being implicated in treason - don’t meddle with such things.

The real victim of all this was the Catholic population at large. All the plotters did was prove to their enemies that Catholics were as vile and unnatural and murderous and hellish a group of human beings as they had already been thought to be. They betrayed not only James VI & I - they betrayed their fellow-Catholics - and contributed to the anti-Catholicism people so often speak of ##
 
I thought the Pope had excommunicated the English kings/queens and implied english catholics no longer had to obey them.
 
Its all hypothetical anyway. Its like saying what if Hitler had never been born.
 
According to author R. Crampton, in his 1990 book, *The Gunpowder Plot *
If Guy Fawkes case came up before the Court of Appeal today, the… judges would surely… acquit him… First, no one has ever seen the attempted tunnel. Builders excavating the area in 1823 found neither a tunnel nor any rubble. Second, the gunpowder. In 1605, the Government had a monopoly on its manufacture… The Government did not display the gunpowder and nobody saw it in the cellars. Third, these cellars were rented by the government to a known Catholic agitator… Fourth, the Tresham letter (his ‘confession’). Graphologists (handwriting experts) agree that it was not written by Francis Tresham.
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