Gunpowder Plot Article

Gunpowder Plot summary

Learn why the Gunpowder Plot took place

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Gunpowder Plot, (1605)Conspiracy by English Roman Catholic zealots to blow up Parliament and kill James I. Angered by James’s refusal to grant more religious toleration to Catholics, a group of conspirators led by Robert Catesby (1573–1605) recruited Guy Fawkes to their plot. One member warned his brother-in-law Lord Monteagle not to attend Parliament on the appointed day (November 5, 1605), and Monteagle alerted the government. Fawkes was arrested in a rented cellar under the palace at Westminster, where he had concealed 20 barrels of gunpowder. Under torture, he revealed the names of the conspirators, and they were all either killed while resisting arrest or executed in 1606. The plot bitterly intensified Protestant suspicions of Catholics.