Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes.
Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) was one of a group of English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which is commemorated in Britain every 5 November as Guy Fawkes Night. He converted to Catholicism and fought for Spain in the Eighty Years' War against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries. In Spain he sought support for a Catholic rebellion in England, but the court of Philip III was unwilling to help him. He later met Thomas Wintour, returned to England, and was introduced to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords in Westminster Palace, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder that they stockpiled there. The authorities found Fawkes guarding the explosives. He was arrested and died after falling from the scaffold where he was to be hanged. (This article is part of a featured topic: Gunpowder Plot.)