The story of Guy Fawkes is an extraordinary one — especially as the plot to blow up parliament, with which he is so closely associated, wasn’t his idea to begin with.
Rather than a ringleader, Fawkes was working under the direction of Robert Catesby, a Catholic of aristocratic background who wished to kill off James I, then the King of England and a strong Protestant who detested those following Papal teachings. Fawkes was recruited for his knowledge of explosives, which he knew well from his time fighting in Spain, during the Eighty Years' War. He helped Catesby recruit other Catholics who wanted the king gone and, famously, was in the end found below the House of Lords guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder. It was easily enough to have destroyed the houses of parliament, killing all those attending the state opening of government and for his part in it, Fawkes was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered — a process which would have seen him have his genetalia cut off in front of his very eyes, before being disembowelled. Fortunately for Fawkes, his neck broke when he was hanged, killing him and sparing him the rest of his punishment.
