Gunpowder, treason and plot – take our Guy Fawkes quiz

Guy Fawkes masks have become popular with protesters – but what do you remember about the original? Photograph: Sergio Moraes/Reuters

Year by year, it seems that Halloween becomes more popular in the UK and the tradition of bonfire night recedes into the distance. Possibly because it is more fun to eat sweets than to set fire to things and then get shouted at by the neighbours because the noise has annoyed their pet. But what do you remember, remember about the 5th of November? Try your hand at history with our gunpowder plot quiz …

The Guardian gunpowder plot quiz

1. 

   Where was Guy Fawkes born?

   1. York

   2. Bristol

   3. Oxford

   4. Canterbury

2. Guy Fawkes was discovered under parliament with gunpowder on the night of 4 November. But which year?

   1. 1585

   2. 1595

   3. 1605

   4. 1615

3. 

   Parliament passed the Thanksgiving Act the following year, to make services and sermons commemorating the plot a regular annual feature, celebrating that the plotters had failed to kill which king of England?

   1. Charles I

   2. James I

   3. James II

   4. Edward VI

4. Although he is the best known of the plotters, Guy Fawkes wasn't actually the leader. Who was?

   1. Joseph Willow

   2. Richard Mace

   3. Robert Catesby

   4. Thomas Cramner

5. 

   What was the real name of Guy Fawkes?

   1. Guy Fawkes

   2. John Johnson

   3. Francis Tresham

   4. Guido Rookwood

6. How was the plot uncovered?

   1. Fawkes was spotted during a routine monthly search of the undercrofts looking for smuggled goods that had been unloaded from the Thames

   2. One of the plotters had written to warn a friend in parliament, Baron Monteagle

   3. Thomas Bates had confessed to the plot while being tortured over a separate suspected crime

   4. The deeply superstitious king ordered a search after having a premonition of his death

7. 

   How many barrels of gunpowder were there?

   1. 12

   2. 24

   3. 36

   4. 1,057

8. A couple of years after the plot, a monument was made listing the names of the conspirators and those who played a part in ending the conspiracy. Where is it now?

   1. St Paul's Cathedral, London

   2. Tower of London, London

   3. Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh

   4. The Monument, London

9. 

   Guy Fawkes masks are a prominent feature in which graphic novel written by Alan Moore?

   1. V for Vendetta

   2. Watchmen

   3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

   4. The Killing Joke

10. And finally … where did Guy Fawkes come in the BBC's 2002 list of 100 Greatest Britons?

    1. 30

    2. 50

    3. 70

    4. He didn't appear – surely nobody voted for somebody who wanted to blow up the monarchy and parliament at the same time?

Solutions

1:A - Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 in Stonegate, York, and he was the second of four children., 2:C - Fawkes was found guarding the gunpowder in an undercroft either late on the night of the 4th or early in the morning of the 5th in 1605., 3:B - King James VI of Scotland had succeeded to the English throne as James I a couple of years earlier, and ruled both countries as separate sovereign nations under the union of the crowns. It was the English parliament that the plotters targeted. Scotland's parliament still sat in Edinburgh during James VI of Scotland's reign., 4:C - He had planned that the assassination of the king would be the prelude to a popular uprising among recusant Catholics to replace the Protestant monarchy., 5:A - it is a trick question – although he adopted the name Guido Fawkes when on continental Europe, and used the name John Johnson when he was arrested, he was actually named Guy Fawkes by his parents. , 6:B - At least one of the plotters was worried that fellow Catholics would perish in the explosion and end up in hell, and so sent a letter warning of "a terrible blow" coming to parliament and urging Monteagle to stay away from the opening day., 7:C - Perhaps you could buy them in six-packs?, 8:B - It was placed there perhaps as a reminder to those who had been arrested of where their journey could end up., 9:A - It is the chosen look of V, an anarchist revolutionary., 10:A - Just below David Bowie and above Leonard Cheshire. Try explaining that to his ghost!

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun – more fun than being tortured then hanged, drawn and quartered anyway

• If you really do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers – and can show your working – feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com, although the quiz master’s answers are final and he might just ignore you.