Antonia Fraser has untangled the web of religion, politics, and personalities that surrounded that fateful night of November 5. In the aftermath of their arrests, conditions grew worse for English Catholics, as legal penalties against them were stiffened and public sentiment became rabidly intolerant." "In a narrative that reads like a gripping detective story. Though the charismatic Catholic Robert Catesby was the group's leader, it was the devout Guy Fawkes who emerged as its most famous member, as he was the one who was captured and who revealed under torture the names of his fellow plotters. Their aim was to ignite the gunpowder at the opening of the parliamentary session. A group of English Catholics, seeking to unseat the king and reintroduce Catholicism as the state religion, daringly placed in position thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the Palace of Westminster. In England, November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day, when fireworks displays commemorate the shocking moment in 1605 when government authorities uncovered a secret plan to blow up the House of Parliament - and King James I along with it.
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