The Gunpowder Plot was an attempt to kill King James I of England, his wife and elder son, much of his court and most of his government by detonating gunpowder beneath the Houses of Parliament in London on November 5th 1605. The King's younger children were to be abducted the same day and one declared as monarch by the plotters, hopefully starting a great rebellion, one in which a Catholic minority would rise up, form a new government around the child ruler and seize back control of an increasingly Protestant England.
The Plot failed – how and why is discussed in articles below – but it left an indelible mark on the English national consciousness: even today, November 5th is commemorated by the lighting of huge bonfires, onto which effigies of the plotters are often thrown.
Contents
The Background to the Gunpowder Plot
1: The Desire for Treason
2: Forlorn Hope
The Gunpowder Plot
1: Catesby's Gunpowder Plot
2: A Cellar Under Parliament
3: The Plotters Expand
4: Failure
5: Aftermath
The Jesuits and the Gunpowder Plot
1: Drawn into Treason
2: Complicity
Was the Gunpowder Plot Terrorism?
List of Plotters
Select Bibliography
