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Plot

The Undercroft

Palace of Westminster, London

Thirty-six barrels of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords.

Just before midnight on 4 November 1605, Guy Fawkes was found in a storeroom under the House of Lords, guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder. The plotters planned to kill James I at the State Opening of Parliament.

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When
4–5 November 1605
Where
51.4995, -0.1248
Group
Plots

Visiting

Parliament runs public tours of the Palace of Westminster.

Cover of Guy Fawkes: Traitor or Faithful? by Cale Mills
From the book

Guy Fawkes: Traitor or Faithful?

The letter was unsigned. The handwriting had been disguised. It was short, badly punctuated and oddly polite. And within a fortnight it would help bring down a conspiracy that had taken eighteen months to build.

This book asks one question and keeps asking it: was Guy Fawkes faithful, or a traitor? Most people think they already know. The answer has been handed down for four hundred years, with a bonfire and a rhyme, and it is rarely examined. From the boy from Stonegate in York to the cellar, the Tower and Westminster Hall, every chapter ends with a ledger of what it adds in his favour and what it adds against him. By the last page you may find that the answer you arrived with is not the one you leave with.

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