Why celebrate the Fifth of November?

Remember, remember the fifth of November: gunpowder treason and plot....

So all commercial hell ( if you take some people's view quite literally) breaks out over Halloween its ghoulish spooky and dark supposedly the celebration of a pagan festival marking the end of summer and then five days later there is 'fireworks night' a night when we light fireworks and look at them because well someone tried to blow up the houses of parliament in 1605. To be honest if the spy master ( think head of MI5) of James' the first: Robert Cecil's report of a great quantity of Gunpowder is anything to go by the intent was to blow up more than just the houses of parliament.

In true English tradition we burn an effigy of the guy who tried to burn our king and use the very thing that he intended to use to harm our beloved ( except by Corbinites and the left) Monarchy and institution of government with to celebrate the fact he didn't. It would be like celebrating a failed drive by with shooting the air. I kind of love it. It's sort of poetic and ironic and distinctively British. Yet every year people go all out for Halloween which is essentially celebrating darkness and barely nod to something which defined our history.

This year I was in America for the beginning of July and saw them celebrate their nations independence from ours. It was weird for me watching fireworks on a warm summer evening. One of my politically and historically minded friends asked me this question.
' do you have any days to celebrate your nationhood or independence.'
' not really - I wouldn't count St. George's day really or any of the national saints. Truly we only really have the fifth of November?"

Of course he had no idea what the fifth of November was about and aside from the whole Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the houses of parliament most people don't.

Lets go back to the Sixteenth century and everyone's favourite monarchical family The Tudors. Henry VIII broke away from the church of Rome what we call the Catholic church. so various historians have differing opinions to the extent protestantism took hold in England even up to 1603 but the truth is that the state religion changed three times between Henry's act of reformation in 1533 and Elizabeth I's death in 1603 whiplash-ing between the old Catholic religion and control from Rome by the pope and the newly established Church of England which caused England a great many problems including rebellions, usurpers and wannabe usurpers and the battle with the Spanish Armada  . James succeeded his mother's cousin as king of England ( which united England and Scotland - yes their king came to us so they shouldn't go on about not having a say in the union because their king came to rule over England (and Wales). don't get me started on that can of worms.). James had a problem, Elizabeth had carefully balanced the church with many burnings at the stake of Catholics and forced outward conformity the problem of religious freedom and the lack thereof was a problem to the nobles. In 1604 he held a conference at Hampton court palace to try to resolve the issues of religion  the conclusion reached was not well a good compromise to anyone the only good thing that really came out of that conference was the commission of the King James Bible.

So we had a lot of annoyed nobles; the puritans began to make moves towards the new world believing that there would be refuge there. The Catholics did something rather different. Most of the catholic nobles got together under a man named Thomas Percy. They planned to blow up the protestant king; his parliament the protestant nobility and of course the protestant bishops the very people who had come up with such a protestant 'compromise' on the fifth of November 1605 they hired a Dutch explosives expert in by the name of Guindo (guy) Fawkes and put a load of gunpowder in a basement under the place of the country's power. They were found out and arrested and executed ( they even had a group portrait done. so it was really easy to do).

In one sense why should we celebrate something that is long over and long gone. There were plenty of other times in history when things didn't go as planned and we as a nation prevailed  the old pretender's attempt to  regain the throne in the early 1700s, The Spanish Armarda's defeat even our triumph in the battle of Britain in the 1940s.

Why does it matter that Guy fawkes was caught red handed in the basement with the gunpowder? Why celebrate the fifth of  November? I am Brittish I love our union I love that we are one country in our isles. If guy had succeeded in 1605  it is not likely the union would have survived as the Catholics would have assumed power and the young Charles would in all likelihood just taken the Scottish throne not both. So the prevention of the plot protected what was a very young and unstable beginnings of a British union which wouldn't be in law for another 100 years (1707) but still if the plot had worked there would have been no Great Britain and no UK. If the plot had succeeded and the king and all the bishops had died the work on the King James Bible probably wouldn't have been completed and whilst there were English translations at the time namely Tyndale's translation. The KJV Bible was much better researched and written and whilst scholarship on translation and understanding of the original cultures, meaning and language has moved on and advanced and of course the English language was standardised in the eighteenth century so there are better modern translations, the KJV was the definitive bible translation in English for centuries and where people have a bible in their own language available they flourish and learn more of God.

After the gunpowder plot and the execution of the plotters there were almost no further attempts to Re- catholocise the country. Of course the male Stuart monarchs liked to dabble with it but that was it Britain (the big island) and her church ( the people) was truly protestant. It marked a moment of triumph for those who ruled our nations ( we are four nations and one country.). If we think about what made this country the Britian we know today it is the protestant church ( Sorry atheists and other faiths but it is.) the moral and social structures we enjoy are underpinned by the heritage we have in the Anglican church. It is our monarchy and our values like that we don't tolerate terrorism and our uniqueness as a nation being different from Europe. I believe all those things come from and were a direct result of the fact that Guy Fawkes failed in 1605.

Treason is never good, the Americans celebrate the success of their act of treason and we celebrate the foiling of one. Quite poetic.  What Percy and Guy Fawkes tried to do in that basement in 1605 would have ripped apart anything unique and beautiful about England especially. It would have changed the course of history drastically. I celebrate the fifth of November because it is evidence to me of God's providential plan in our history. When we see those fireworks we are celebrating our heritage and that it wasn't taken from us by terrorism. To me that is a reason to celebrate.