why do we celebrate bonfire night?

Answers to why do we celebrate bonfire night

Bonfire Night is held in Britain on 5th November. It celebrates the defeat of a conspiracy to blow up the    Houses of Parliament with the then king, James I, in it. Bonfire Night is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks.

The Story of the Gunpowder Plot & Guy Fawkes
On 5th November 1605, two years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, soldiers discovered a man called Guy Fawkes in a cellar under the Houses of Parliament. With him were at least twenty barrels of gunpowder. Guy Fawkes was arrested and tortured. At last he gave way and told his torturers about a plot to blow up Parliament, together with the King, James I, his Ministers and Members of Parliament.

Guy FawkesGuy Fawkes was a Roman Catholic who had been angered by the failure of King James, who was after all the son of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, to grant more religious toleration to Catholics. He had joined with a group of four other Catholics led by Robert Catesby in the plot to kill the king. Catesby had made the mistake of inviting other Catholics to join the plot. One of these was called Francis Tresham. Tresham wrote a letter to his brother-in-law Lord Monteagle warning him not to go to Parliament and Monteagle told the government. Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators were executed as traitors.

In 1606 Parliament agreed to make 5th November a day of public thanksgiving and ever since then the day has been celebrated with fireworks and bonfires.

Why do we celebrate it
Bonfire Night is a known celebration for the Gunpowder plot, Guy Fawkes and his group of English Roman catholics which tried to blow up the The Houses of Parliament and kill King James I to protest against the Protestant Rule on November 5 1605 He was caught and Burnt at the stake!

Some People think that Bonfire Night is wrong Celebrating the death of Guy Fawkes and shouldn’t be Celebrated it’s like celebrating terrorism like 9/11.

But it is actually Celebrated because Guy Fawkes was unsuccessful and didn’t blow up the Houses of Parliament if Guy Fawkes did Succeed the results would have been catastrophic and many innocent people would have been killed.

Digging deeper
After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics who had been persecuted under her rule had hoped that her successor, James I, would be more tolerant of their religion. James I had, after all, had a Catholic mother. Unfortunately, James did not turn out to be more tolerant than Elizabeth and a number of young men, 13 to be exact, decided that violent action was the answer.

A small group took shape, under the leadership of Robert Catesby. Catesby felt that violent action was warranted. Indeed, the thing to do was to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, they would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics. Today these conspirators would be known as extremists, or terrorists.

To carry out their plan, the conspirators got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder - and stored them in a cellar, just under the House of Lords.

But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack, including some people who even fought for more rights for Catholics. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. Was the letter real?

The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators.

Guy Fawkes, who was in the cellar of the parliament with the 36 barrels of gunpowder when the authorities stormed it in the early hours of November 5th, was caught, tortured and executed.

It's unclear if the conspirators would ever have been able to pull off their plan to blow up the Parliament even if they had not been betrayed. Some have suggested that the gunpowder itself was so old as to be useless. Since Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators got caught before trying to ignite the powder, we'll never know for certain.

Even for the period which was notoriously unstable, the Gunpowder Plot struck a very profound chord for the people of England. In fact, even today, the reigning monarch only enters the Parliament once a year, on what is called "the State Opening of Parliament". Prior to the Opening, and according to custom, the Yeomen of the Guard search the cellars of the Palace of Westminster. Nowadays, the Queen and Parliament still observe this tradition.

On the very night that the Gunpowder Plot was foiled, on November 5th, 1605, bonfires were set alight to celebrate the safety of the King. Since then, November 5th has become known as Bonfire Night. The event is commemorated every year with fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes on a bonfire.

Some of the English have been known to wonder, in a tongue in cheek kind of way, whether they are celebrating Fawkes' execution or honoring his attempt to do away with the government.

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