The Gunpowder Plot - The Confession of Guy Fawkes

At nearly midnight, on the 4th of November 1605, Guy Fawkes was hours away from blowing up the Houses of Parliament. He and his colleagues had worked on their plot for eighteen months.

After he was captured, Fawkes refused to talk. Even when he was brought to the Tower of London, he stayed mute. To help change his mind, the king authorized a special use of torture to be used on Fawkes, if he stayed quiet.

On the 7th of November, after likely being put on the rack, Fawkes talked. Soon thereafter, the other conspirators were also captured. They were, they said, "utterly undone."

When the captured suspect was ultimately brought before King James I, to explain what was actually going on, Fawkes reportedly said: "I wanted to blow you back to your Scottish mountains." Instead, it was Fawkes and his co-conspirators who were executed.

On the 5th of November, Britain celebrates "Guy Fawkes Day" with bonfires and other things - like this poem (which has come to us over the centuries):

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.