It is hard to find a cat in a dark room,
especially when there is no cat...

Guy Fawkes... Guido Fawkes... man whose name became the symbol of the Gunpowder Plot... Who else can boast of such a fate and such a memory... The day of his arrest and the beginning of torment in the hands of executioners continues to celebrate the whole nation... His effigy is burnt year after year by his compatriots for more than four hundred years... Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night...

By the way, this very moment, as of this writing, only one day is left before the next anniversary widely celebrated in Great Britain, in New Zealand, in the North Africa, in the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada), in a part of the British Caribbean Islands and in Australia. The citizens of his native York protest against the fact that they will not see the traditional fireworks in 2009, because the stadium at which the festival will take place doesn't meet the requirements of the fire safety ... Yeah... Perhaps, grannies and childreans are very disappointed... candies... petards... change for Guy... what's to be done without all of this?..

So, what has taken place or should have taken place at night of the 5th of October, 1605?
What makes yeomanry (year after year up to the very twenty first century) before each ceremony of inauguration of the British Parliament with the Address from the Throne at the beginning of each session rummage the building to make sure that the modern Fawkeses have not dodged in the underground... and is it only a fancy-dress custom?..
What is really at the back of that?..
And who was Guy Fawkes whose part played Michael in "Gunpowder, Treason & Plot"...

He was the only son of a barrister of a Christian court in York. The Fawkes family professed the Catholic Faith... And Guy believed strongly, as it should be if you reckon yourself among the believers. That is, he was ready to die for that very Faith... Because it could be necessary... At such times... The times of religious wars...
Guy early joined the army. During the queendom of Maria I Tudor Bloody who patronized the Catholics and who was in love with the King of Spain Philip the Second, Guy was at war, together with his regiment, on the side of the Spaniard during the revolutionary rebellion of the Protestants in the Netherlands. He, as his Queen did, liked Spain very much... its discipline... its firmness in Faith... quiet concentration of the Spaniards between the battles, and cool severity in the battle... That was the army of his dream... these were the people who with the purity of their thoughts and with their absence of vanity could exemplify to his compatriots... He has even changed his English name Guy for the Spanish Guido... It was this name which signed the confession... He could do that, because the executors left three fingers of his sword-arm rather untouched... they do it exactly with this purpose, because such was an Order of James I: "Fawkes should be able to sign the document!"...

Leaping a little bit ahead, it's worth marking that just here hides one of those black cats plenty of which will be in met in future, and which are dodging and being searched out in vain in the "dark room of the history" of the "Gunpowder Plot"...

In spite of the order received by Sir William Waad, a lieutenant of the London Tower, on application of "the severest interrogation methods" on Fawkes, they couldn't, actually, get the result... Guy hasn't given any information about the conspirators... But the arrest of each and every participants of the Gunpowder Plot took place nevertheless and has been made perfectly, with the minimum loss...
The only thing is the most mysterious and difficult for explanation: in spite of the soldiers had the strict order to take the criminals only live, Robert Catesby, the head of the organization, has been shot during the arrest... And that's quite strange... More than strange...

Guido Fawkes signed the confession only after he has been shown all of his captured brother-in-arms in the Tower... The testimony of that fact is the differences in the dates of arrests of the conspirators and of his admitting fault of the attempted explosion of the Parliament building and of the attempt upon the lives of all its members and James I himself...

The other black cats dodged in the bone yards of the Gunpowder Plot history will be spoken about in the section "The Food for a Grey Cells", and now let's talk a little bit more about Guido...

The splendid red aigrette swings in the blue of the sky... The cuirass is sparkling... A wordless poem... The heaps of rotting flesh... The groans of the dying... The faces in the pangs of death... The faces of the people most of whom you knew... The face of any war in the battlefield of which you are a mere soldier... and that's all...

"You fight for Spain?"
"I'm fight for the Catholic Faith"...

Guy Fawkes... a mere soldier of Faith...
He always remains like this... in the morning, afternoon, evening and at night... Having abandoned everything he could abandon... Severely and quietly... Without any demands he could hold against the God as the gratitude for his self-denunciation, and without any hopes for a glorious role in the History and for grateful memory of the descendents...
What an irony... "Change for Guy"... candies... petards... effigy in flame...

It's difficult to say what this man expected when had come to London to participate in the Gunpowder Plot... But Guy has got nothing of what he figured on, and of what he had the right to expect from the people who were preparing the attempt upon the life of the reining Monarch and his Parliament... It's impossible to state if he would have denied his participation if he had been able to suppose the betrayal of those to whom he confided... to think just for a minute that all which has been being prepared by the whole group was only a farce to spudding the ground for strengthening of James's I power, for his obtaining long-awaited subsides to the empty Royal treasury from the obstinate Parliament, and for oppression of the Catholics which would have been lasting for the next two hundred years on the territory of England...

Heated discussions... passionate arguments... the plotters meet... The are ready to sacrifice their lives "for the sake of the Thule"... But they are not ready to abandon the women, to whom they seem not to confide even a poke with money, but in whose lordship they nevertheless give their lives, not speaking about the lives of the others... They will lose their heads with all humility, but they don't want to resign a bottle or two of wine... After all, it's always can be treated like this: "This is the blood of Christ..." They talk bravely about how, after disposing of the King and his Parliament, they will take the power, and peace and delight will reign in the world; but they can't realize the simplest thing: that the name "Guy Fawkes" is perfectly known to Lord Cesil, and if this name will be sounded in the presence of an "incident" person by carelessness or just silly trustfullness, that will mean death for Guy himself, as well as for those who sit at the one table with him...
And he has to repeat once and once again:
"I'm not Fawkes, I'm Johnson".

There's no gunpowder yet... no rented room... nothing but a daring plan... but the further dividends which will be some time given by History Queen, the best of all the Majesties, should be immediately divided... what's to be done without all of this?.. that's like an advance which is pleasant in the pocket when you are to be broken on the wheel... even more, your right for the Hero's role, due to your higher step on the social ladder, is much... much more...
"Fawkes will light the fuse".
"Whoever lights the fuse he will be seen a central to the plot. In should not be a mere soldier".

He had to go away... He had to leave everything and to run away... But he stays, again and again silently touching with his knife a simple cross made of two wooden sticks tied together... trying to bring this symbol to perfection known only to himself... The Cross which will also betray him soon saying nothing about the fact that it has quite recently been in the alien hands...

The soldier has to be watchful... The soldier has to take cautions... The soldier has no right for a mistake... The soldier can’t leave the battlefield while his heart is beating, and while his hands can keep his arm...

The dividends distributed by History Queen... What guides her running the capricious hands of a precious gift bag...

"This plotters will be executed in a appropriate manner:
To the scaffold they will be drawn for they are not fit to walk the earth.
They will be drawn backward at the tail of a horse, for that will represent they backwoods nature.
They will be drawn upside down for God made of the head of a man the supreme part of his body. Yet this traitors have abused the Gods work.
They will be hang by the neck between heaven and earth for they are fit for neither.
They will have their a private parts cut off for they are not fit to have children.
They will have their hearts cut outs for in there they conceived this treason.
They will have their heads cut off for in there they developed what their hearts conceived.
Their bodies will be decohered and they will be hanged off to be devoured by the birds of the air.
And their heads will be set upon the pikes and they will be left there as a reminder to all of our people of the consequences of gunpowder, treason and plots."

Chronologically, it looked as follows:
The convicted were hung.
They were not let die in the loop by taking them off the gibbet still alive.
Their bellows were ripped up, and their bowels were put out to be demonstrated ton the mob.
Then they were quartered.
That was the most dispiteous execution practiced in those times. The plotters were executed on 30th and 31st of January, 1606 in London, in the court of the Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

But, the Monarchs (no matter how clever and tricky they are), not always are able to get over a honest and really courageous man. Michael played him like this...
Guido Fawkes could elude humiliation on the scaffold... Just at the beginning of the execution, he managed to get out of the hangmen’s hands and to jump down, having died immediately: the rope broke his neck...

"Remember, remember the fifth November...
... Holloa, boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!.."

There is one more date...And we remember it...
The 13th of April... On that day, a boy was born in the family of Christian court barrister...
His parents named him Guy...