4th November, Mischief Night

Its understandable that colonials will not understand the meaning of the term “Mischief Night”, but they may be surprised to learn that most British people outside of Yorkshire will not understand the meaning of the word “Mischief Night” either, it certainly still surprises me.

When I roamed the streets as a young boy Mischief Night was almost as big as Bonfire Night (which is tomorrow) and involved roaming gangs of young boys wandering around in the dark smearing treacle to car door handles, tying dustbins to front door handles and if you were really mischievous, “egging” someones house or car.

Indeed, the “egging” problem grew to be so serious in recent years that shops banned the sale of eggs to under 18’s in the same way as they do alcohol – “Have you got ID for those eggs ?” a checkout operator will ask in supermarkets today and regard the young person with as much suspicion as if they’d tried to buy twenty Rothmans and a litre of vodka, “Me mum wants to do some baking” the youngster will plead, in vain.

So what is it all about then ?

Its a celebration of a famous night in English history, the night when the greatest mischief maker of all time was caught red-handed in the cellars of the House of Parliament in London, priming the fuses on 36 barrels of gunpowder, 1800 pounds of explosive that would have reduced the centre of English democracy to matchwood, very small pieces of matchwood, and ensure that the English Parliament, which was due to sit on the morrow, would also be reduced to very small pieces of charred matchwood including the King, James 1, who would then be replaced with the assistance of the Spanish monarchy, by a catholic king of the conspirators choice, potentially the Kings cousin Arabella Stuart, a devout catholic and possibly one of those “gays” having been given a womans name at birth.

And so we lay the roots of the story of the Gunpowder Plot, a complicated tale of religious turmoil and the struggle to gain the throne of England in 1605, a story that some years ago I condensed down into only about twenty pages in a series entitled “History For Those Who Didn’t Listen Very Much At School”, and as we celebrate (by ancient law) the Gunpowder plot tomorrow night by lighting bonfires all over the land (how fortuitous to us citizens of Leeds who are now in the tenth week of a bin strike), and igniting fireworks in a way that Guy Fawkes could only have dreamed of as his body was ripped asunder and stuck on pikes all over the city of London.

And so, in a Readers Digest Condensed stylee we will try and describe the build up to the main event in order to educate our colonials on a thing called “History” (they don;’t have much of their own) and also for the benefit of Those Who Did Not Listen Very Much At School…

Its 1603, Queen Elizabeth of England dies and leaving no successor her sisters son James VI of Scotland becomes King James I of England to the great celebration of catholics in England – catholics in England having been persecuted and made illegal by act of parliament during Elizabeth and her father Henry VII’s reign – James I’s mother, Mary, former Queen of Scotland and short lived Queen of France had turned to catholicism and James had been raised under this influence – t’was indeed a good day for catholics when James was made King.

(Makes note – Mary had an incredibly complicated life even by Tudor standards, must write of her soon too)

A good day for catholics soon turns to a bad day for catholics as James I makes it very clear that the Church of England will continue to be the only religion followed in his eponymous country and so catholic noblemen in the country start to plot his removal from the throne, to be replaced by a Spanish nobleman with a womans name, King Arabella, it wouldn’t have worked would it ?

Under the leadership of enriched nobility in the guise of Robert Catesby the plot takes shape over the next two years, in 1604 the noblemen rent a shop in a street behind the Houses of Parliament and start to dig a tunnel which they hope will emerge in the cellars of Parliament ready for the opening of business in the autumn of that year but with secrecy being a top priority the noblemen have to do the digging themselves and the tunnel does not progress very quickly, you can only imagine them taking a stroll of an evening after a hard days digging, shaking heaps of soil from their pockets as they promenade along the Thames in the same stylee as the tunnelers in the film “The Great Escape”.

To their relief a plague sweeps the city towards the end of 1604 and Parliament is abandoned as wealthy folk flee the city of London to their country homes leaving the plague to decimate the poor people, for that is all they deserve – the plotters also return to their large country estates, and continue plotting.

Its obvious that they need someone to do the digging for them, Catesby is heard to complain loudly on several occasions about how the digging has ruined his nails, so they visit Belgium and are introduced to a mercenary soldier by the name of Guy Fawkes – Fawkes has fought on all sides of the several wars between England, France and Spain, basically he is a Premier League soldier with an agent and everything and he is transferred regularly between the combatants for huge fees in a way that David Beckham could only dream of 400 years later.

Fawkes agrees to become a catholic sympathiser for a sum of money and takes over the day to day running of the plot, buying gunpowder over several months so as not to attract suspicion he stores dozens of barrels of the stuff in the house they have rented, and he regards the tunnel with dread as he too is proud of his manicure and does not fancy the digging too much.

And then a stroke of luck, during the summer of 1605 a coal merchant who rented a cellar underneath the Parliament building moves out and the space is put up for rent again.

Lets pause here to consider the stupidity of the English Parliament – the current Houses of Parliament were built around 1860, of brick and stone, the House of Parliament in 1605 was made of wood, as were most surrounding buildings. So you build your Parliament of wood and you rent the cellars to a coal merchant to store his stock in, then you rent it to a mercenary soldier to store his gunpowder in – Health and Safety was obviously not a top priority in 1605, nor was common sense.

So Fawkes rents the cellars and under cover of darkness starts to move his, by now, impressive collection of gunpowder barrels, and the recall of Parliament from the countryside is set for November 5th…

…and then the shit hit the fan