All language subtitles for Lucy Worsley Investigates s02e02 - The Gunpowder Plot (2025) 720p [SubRipper.com].en

Midnight on
the 4th of November, 1605.

FOOTSTEPS APPROACH

In a cellar deep below Parliament,

Guy Fawkes prepares
to light the fuse

of a radical attack,

planned by a small network of men...

..determined...

FUSE FIZZES

..to destroy the King
and his government.

CROWS CAW

Unstopped, this one explosion...

..could have changed the history
of Britain entirely.

So what were the steps,

the causes and connections

that led these men
to attempt to blow up Parliament?

EXPLOSION

In this series,

I'm reinvestigating some of the most
dramatic and brutal chapters

in British history.

Oh, yes, here we go.

And now you're face-to-face
with William the Conqueror.

They know that sex sells
and that violence sells.

These stories form part
of our national mythology.

They harbour mysteries that have
intrigued us for centuries.

It turns very dark here.

It sounds like a network
of informers, doesn't it?

They're such graphic images
of religious violence.

But with the passage of time,

we have new ways to
unlock their secrets,

using scientific advances
and a modern perspective.

He was what we would now call
a foreign fighter.

I'm going to uncover
forgotten witnesses,

I'm going to re-examine old evidence
and follow new clues...

The human hand.

..to get closer to the truth.

It's like fake news.

You're questioning whether we can
actually take that seriously

as a piece of evidence.

I'm deep beneath
the streets of London

on the trail of a group of men
who many would now call terrorists.

Ah, here it is.

These are the Gunpowder Plotters,

the infamous Guy Fawkes
and his fellow conspirators,

who, on the 5th of November, 1605,

tried to blow up a packed Parliament

in the name of their Catholic faith.

I think that this image
shows just how sanitised

this story has become.

Every year, much of Britain
still celebrates Guy Fawkes Night,

his night, on the 5th of November.

The Gunpowder Plot has become

a nice, family friendly party night,

with bonfires and fireworks,

and an engraving that's safe enough
to be shown on the Tube.

But this is not a safe story.

Back in 1605,

when Guy Fawkes was caught,
the ports were closed,

people panicked.

The state focused all its attention
on tracking down and executing

the group of would-be killers.

CHAINS RATTLE

DEEP GROWL

I want to investigate how these men
reached the extreme.

How they connected with others

and came to believe that the
answer to their problems

was wiping out the seat of power.

This was a dangerously
radicalised network of men.

They were willing to risk everything

to kill hundreds, if not thousands,
of people for their cause.

But what made them unite and plan

this really monumental act
of violence?

We tend to forget the names
or even the existence

of most of the plotters.

Yet, even as children,
they had connections to each other.

So, to uncover the roots
of their radicalisation,

I'm starting this investigation

by going back much earlier than most
people do - to their childhoods.

Three of the future conspirators,

John Wright and his brother,
Christopher Wright,

as well as Guy Fawkes,
all went to the same school,

growing up in the City of York.

BELL TOLLS

Amazing.

This is St Michael
Le Belfrey church,

which has been active
for nearly 500 years.

It's currently undergoing
a major renovation,

but I've been allowed to come in to
take a look at the church records.

This book contains

the first written record
of Guy Fawkes.

Here he is, the third one down.

It says, "Guy Fawkes,
the son of Edward Fawkes,

"was christened here in this church

"in 1570."

But there's something else
I want to look at in this book

to get a sense of Guy's early life.

Oh, yes.

Here it is.

A list of burials
from eight years later, 1578.

And among the people
who've died is...

..Edward Fawkes.

That's Guy's father.

So Guy lost his father
when he was still a child.

And there's something
else here, too.

It's quite tricky to read,
but it says he was

"registrar and advocate

"of the consistory court
of the cathedral".

So that means he was a lawyer
working in the church court.

That would have been dealing
with cases like

the annulment of people's marriages,
that sort of thing.

And it's interesting because it
means that Guy's father was working

for the Church and, at the time,

that meant the Protestant Church.

So Guy, who will ultimately
die for a Catholic cause,

is born a Protestant.

In the late 16th century,
faith had the power

to dictate life on earth and beyond.

Protestants and Catholics disagreed
on the route to salvation.

Picking the wrong side meant the
difference between heaven and hell.

In the 1580s, Guy's mother
remarried into a Catholic family.

Around this time,
Guy became a convert.

When Guy converted to Catholicism,

he must have felt that this was
the only way to obey God

and ultimately to go to heaven.

But in the eyes of the state,
he was utterly wrong.

The Protestant Queen Elizabeth
was on the throne

and, by the 1580s, when the young
Guy was walking these streets,

Catholicism was effectively banned.

Not going to Protestant church
could mean fines or even prison.

Catholic priests were outlaws,

and protecting priests
meant real danger.

When Guy was in his teens, a local
woman called Margaret Clitherow,

she was the wife of a butcher,

was accused of hiding priests
in her house.

As a result of this, she was
brought to the middle of York

and she was very publicly killed.

I want to know what effect this
event might have had on Guy Fawkes

and the other York-based
conspirators, the Wrights,

who were from a known
Catholic family.

And there's a tantalising clue
in the city's Bar Convent.

Hannah, what is this completely
extraordinary object?

So we are looking at the hand
of Margaret Clitherow.

The hand. The hand.
The human hand. The human hand.

This is a relic taken at
some point by her followers

so they had something to
remember her by, to keep safe.

Can you tell me a bit
of Margaret's story?

She's somebody who converts
to Catholicism in her 20s,

and then she runs a sort of
secret Catholic network,

safe homes for priests.

She's imprisoned three times
over a seven-year period.

And then, in 1585, the law changes

and it makes it a capital offence
to harbour a priest.

And then, under that law,
she is prosecuted,

so she refuses to plead guilty
or not guilty

to protect people around her.

So the sentence that's actually
passed on her is to be crushed

until she enters a plea... To be...
..or until she dies.

To be what? To be crushed.
Crushed?! Yes.

LUCY EXHALES

Yes.

That's terrible. Yeah, it's
a particularly brutal death.

There's a sharp stone
put under her back,

a door is laid on top of her,

and then heavy weights
are put on top of the door.

So they're kind of constantly added,
so it gets heavier and heavier.

And obviously, naturally,
I think she lasts about 15 minutes.

It's a particularly
horrific way to die,

and very public, quite undignified.

So she's stripped, she's just
in her kind of linen shift.

And people are watching this?
People are watching.

There's a huge crowd watching it.

Is it possible that Guy Fawkes
was present

at this public spectacle
of execution?

It's very possible. A lot of the
Catholics in the city were there.

We know that there are accounts
of there being a really large crowd.

So, even if they weren't there
necessarily in person

at the execution, then we know they
would have heard about the story.

So we've got a manuscript
biography of her life,

which was circulated amongst
the Catholic community.

And then we've got a little
sort of picture as well,

which does a similar job.

So it's a little engraving
of her execution,

so the death is happening
here at the background.

And they're putting the weights on.

Putting the weights on. Gosh.

And, again, you could pass
this around the community.

You could share the story.

That's such a powerful image,
isn't it? Mm.

"This is what those Protestants
have done to us!" Yeah.

It must have been a hugely,

viscerally distressing experience
for everybody.

I think it must have
had a massive impact.

The two other Gunpowder Plotters,
John and Christopher Wright,

they were possibly there as well.

So the men that were to later on
become the Gunpowder Plotters,

they're in their teens
at this point.

And then this story becomes a sort
of, "What if that was MY mother?"

Or, "What if that was OUR family?"

It changes their whole world
to be labelled as a Catholic.

It's not just a case of where do
they go to church on a Sunday.

It's a real sort of
everyday struggle.

There's constant persecution.

I'm thinking, if I were a Catholic,
this might well make me paranoid,

but in a sense that paranoia
is completely justified.

There are people out to kill them.
Yeah, absolutely.

It is a stark reminder of the
realities of what they're doing.

The violent death
of Margaret Clitherow

must have had a seismic effect
on the community here in York,

where Guy Fawkes and some of
the other future plotters

were teenagers. This was an
impressionable age for them.

And I can imagine that, if you were
recently converted to Catholicism

or thinking about
becoming a Catholic,

then this must have
had a real impact.

I'm not saying that watching
somebody being killed

for their religion justifies
the killing of other people.

Absolutely not.

But I think I can begin
to glimpse the sort of effect

it might have had on Guy Fawkes.

To him, religion must
have started to feel

like it was a matter
of life and death.

We can never know exactly
what the young Guy Fawkes thought

about his home country
and the ruling regime at this time.

But I have managed to find a hint.

This is the last trace of Guy Fawkes
I've been able to find here in York.

It's a copy of a document

that calls him "Guy Fawkes of
the City of York, gentleman".

But it's a copy of a document

where he's selling his land
that he owned here,

so he's selling up and moving on.

In his early 20s, Guy headed to
Europe to fight for Catholic Spain

in its wars against
the Protestant Dutch.

Now, I just don't know
whether he was a restless young man

looking for adventure,

or whether - as a Catholic -

he felt that there was no future
for him in England.

But either way, this seems like a
moment of decision in his life,

a clean break with the past.

He's going abroad to
fight for his faith.

Guy was making a big change.

But he became a soldier -
he's not an extremist...yet.

And although Guy has today become
the face of the Gunpowder Plot,

it wasn't his idea.

To understand what drove this plan
for radical violence,

I'm going to have to follow
a different line of inquiry,

to look at the man credited
with coming up with the plot -

the ringleader, Robert Catesby.

I've come to Ashby Manor
in Northamptonshire,

which belonged
to the Catesby family.

Ashby is mentioned in letters
between the conspirators

as a base where they could meet.

And hidden away here
is the perfect room.

This is the gatehouse.

It's supposed to be a good place
for plotting

because it's at a distance
from the main house over there.

That's so Robert Catesby's mum

didn't need to know
what was going on.

And it's here they had
some of the meetings

to plan the gunpowder attack
on Westminster.

It happened here.

The other conspirators later talked
about Catesby as a charismatic man

who drew them into
the Gunpowder Plot.

But this wasn't the first uprising

Robert Catesby had been
involved with.

Four years earlier, in 1601,

Catesby had joined an attempted coup
known as the Essex Rebellion.

This wasn't a Catholic plot

but a power grab within the court
of Elizabeth I,

which attracted a range
of disaffected groups.

To try to understand
Catesby's motivations,

I'm meeting a historian who studied
the evidence for his life.

We're sat here in one of
the Catesby family's homes.

Can you tell me a bit
about Robert's background?

Well, he's from a prominent
gentry family

who are descended from one
of the cronies of Richard III.

But, by the 1580s,
Catesby's father is known

as one of the kind of leading
Catholic gentlemen in the area.

He is somebody who
we call a recusant,

who pays fines for not attending
the Church of England services,

and he's seen as potentially
troublesome to the regime.

So like father, like son,

there's a history of being
a Catholic, um, agitator?

Yeah. Catesby's father,
William Catesby, as far as we know,

did not get involved in any schemes
that involved violent action.

And he declared that he was a
loyal subject of the Crown,

just not of the Church.

So, in that sense, Robert Catesby
is of a generation

that has decided that violent action
is now necessary

because they can't see
that their situation

and the situation of those who are
suffering for their religion

is going to become any better.

For Catesby, the outlawing
of his religion meant you're not...

..really, you can't participate
in the state,

you're not anything
we'd call a citizen.

And for a member of the gentry,
that means, really,

you can't live the kind of life
to which you are born properly.

He seems to have been
extremely ambitious,

but also possessed of this
kind of desire for action.

We have records of him in
conversation with Catholic priests

saying, "I cannot wait...

"..I cannot wait for Catholicism
to be restored by Providence.

"I have to act now."

Hmm. He's an action man.
He's an action man.

Alexandra, what happens
to the people who were involved

in the Earl of Essex's rebellion?

Well, Essex himself, with a handful
of his really close conspirators,

are executed. They're beheaded.

But a much larger number
of them are imprisoned

and fined quite significantly.

This document says the names
of those that are fined

and reserved to Her Majesty's use.

And here we see the name
of Robert Catesby.

4,000 marks.
That's a pretty big fine.

It's difficult to make these
kinds of calculations,

but we think that's, at a very low
estimate, at least £4 million today.

Gosh! And what does it mean to be
"reserved to Her Majesty" like that?

That means, theoretically,
to be imprisoned

or to be placed under some
kind of close confinement...

Gosh. ..such as house arrest.

He's certainly, from this point,
on the radar of the Privy Council

and the Crown as somebody
who might be a potential threat.

Just before Elizabeth's death,

he's one of a number
of Catholic gentlemen

who are placed under some
kind of confinement and watch.

They're described as hunger-starved
for innovation.

That means that they're
seen as seditious,

they want some kind of change.

And he's seen as a kind of turbulent
spirit who might be dangerous.

It seems to me that Robert Catesby
was a desperate man,

so keen for change that it was
already landing him in trouble.

Elizabethan rule had been hard
on these Catholic families.

There was a mood of anger.

But I want to examine why that
anger then grew into extremism

under a different monarch.

Because the Gunpowder Plot
took place

two years after the death
of Elizabeth.

In 1603, King James VI of Scotland
became King James I of England.

Catholics like Robert Catesby
could find reasons to be optimistic.

King James was Protestant,

but his mother had been the
Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.

And James's own wife had
converted to Catholicism,

suggesting his children could be
brought up in the faith.

James was the leader many
Catholics had hoped for.

In fact, one of the plotters,
Thomas Percy was his name,

had even met up with James
before he'd taken the English throne

in order to discuss toleration
for Catholics.

So why would the plotters turn from
being hopeful about the new king

to wanting to kill him?

James's biographer believes that a
book written by the King himself

reveals a reason why the plotters
might have felt betrayed.

So this is James's Basilikon
Doron, or the Kingly Gift.

And it's a sort of how to be a king
that James had written

to his son, Prince Henry.

And it was first written in 1599,
when he was King of Scotland,

but then became a mammoth
bestseller in England

upon his accession
to the English throne in 1603.

What kind of insights do
we get from the book, then?

We get some quite
surprising insights

into how James might have operated.

One of those is the idea
of being economical with the truth.

Is that OK?

Well, for James, it is, at times.

So, in this passage
in the 1603 edition,

he says that "it may be thought
a point of imbecility of spirit

"in a king to speak obscurely,
much more untruly".

So that means you've got to be a
straight talker to be a good king.

That's exactly right -
in the 1603 edition.

In the earliest forms of the text,
however, in 1599... Oh?

..it's a little bit different.

No way! What does he say?

So I've got here the older
Scottish version from 1599.

The King must not "speak obscurely,
much more untruly...

"..EXCEPT some unhappy mutiny
or sudden rebellion were blazed up.

"Then, indeed, it is a lawful policy

"to bear with that present fiery
confusion by fair general speeches."

What a dirty devil!

So he's saying,
if there's a crisis going on,

it's OK not to tell the truth?
Absolutely.

To say things that are
kind of meaningless,

just to smooth things over?
Yes. That's right.

And, indeed, he goes on to say

"keeping you as far as you can
from direct promises". Hmm.

So give them the brush off.

So, if that's his true thought,

and I can imagine him coming
to England and saying

all of these kind things
about the Catholics... Hmm.

..is that how they got the idea
that he was going to tolerate them?

Yes. On one level,
I think that is true.

Before he is safely ensconced
on the English throne,

he is trying to appeal to different
audiences who might be useful to him

in bringing about a smooth course
to succeed to Elizabeth's throne,

almost like a politician
seeking election.

And when James came south
in the spring of 1603,

things did get lighter
for Catholics.

Fines on Catholics
for non-attendance at church

were greatly alleviated.

So James gives off these signals.

He's able to leave people thinking
that they have been listened to.

In that sense, he's a slippery
character at times.

But that does then
pose some problems

because the hopes that
they had in him

turn out not to be
quite what they had thought.

The King's attitude towards
Catholics soon hardened.

In March 1604, James made
a proclamation to Parliament,

making it clear he was never
going to tolerate Catholicism.

He ordered the deportation
of Jesuit priests,

accusing them of being a
malevolent foreign influence.

They've got to go before
the 19th day of March.

That's just a few weeks away.

This is a real crackdown.

The fines Queen Elizabeth
had established

for not going to church were soon
reintroduced and backdated.

There was a sense of doors closing.

The options for toleration
were shutting down.

For an already frustrated man,
like Robert Catesby,

all this must have felt like a real
blow, perhaps even a provocation.

But while these events were
unfolding in England,

Guy Fawkes was hundreds
of miles away.

So how far down the road
to extremism was he?

When King James came to the throne,

Guy Fawkes had been in Europe
for about a decade,

fighting for Catholic Spain.

His name appears on
lists of soldiers,

but there's very little detail.

But to get a sense of how Guy was
feeling about events in England...

..I've tracked down some evidence

in a Spanish historical
archive in Simancas.

This is a document that's
supposed to be written,

rather excitingly,
by Fawkes himself.

Now, it's in Spanish...

..and I can see what he's done.

He's changed his name to the
more Spanish sounding Guido.

He's become Guido Fawkes here.

It's from 1603,

and Guido Fawkes is reporting news
to the Royal Court in Spain.

The subject is the new King James.

And this English translation exposes
the true nature of Guy's position.

It says here that James is a heretic

and that he's determined to
"tyrannise" the English Catholics.

That's a strong word.

Guy goes on to claim there's
infighting in James's court.

It appears he's deliberately
undermining the new king.

He's telling the Spanish
that England is not a happy place,

especially for Catholics.

It's likely that, by
spreading these stories,

Guy was hoping Spain
would step in and help.

Spain had been at war with England
since the mid-1580s.

In 1588, the fleet
of the Spanish Armada

had attempted to invade England.

Ever since, English Catholics
had lobbied Spain to try again

or at least support a rebellion.

And there's another document here

that I think suggests just how
desperate for change Guy was.

Hmm. This is... This is amazing.

This is Guy imagining the future.

He's drafted a proclamation that's
to be handed out to English people

after an imaginary future
foreign invasion.

So he's literally making plans for
there to be a new regime in England.

And hidden inside what he's written
is this fascinating point.

He says that God is going to be
OK if you use violence,

provided you've been oppressed
and when no other remedy is offered.

So what he's saying is that,
when there's no other option,

violence is justified
in the eyes of God.

Guy's ready to fight back.

Guy wasn't the only person

hoping Spain would help
the English Catholics.

Catesby, and other plotters, too,
appealed to the Spanish for aid.

It was their last big hope.

But Spain was short of cash.

War was expensive.

So, in 1604, Spain and England
signed a peace treaty.

This must have left the English
Catholics feeling alone.

The cavalry were not coming,

and perhaps this was the
final twist in the screw

that made Catesby
and the other conspirators

feel that it was down to them.

Nobody was going to help them.

They must take drastic action.

Within a year of James's coronation,

Catesby had begun to gather
a small group of men

to plot a major uprising.

John Wright had grown up in York

and, like Catesby, had been
part of the Essex Rebellion.

Thomas Wintour
was Robert Catesby's cousin

and a relative of one of the priests

hidden by Margaret Clitherow.

To get inside the heads
of these plotters

as they made their early plans,
I've come to Hatfield House,

built by Robert Cecil,

the Secretary of State who oversaw
the Gunpowder Plot investigations.

Among Cecil's papers here

are the confessions of core
conspirator Thomas Wintour.

But these incredible original
documents also present problems.

As a historian, the first question
I have to ask myself

is, what's the nature
of the evidence I'm looking at?

Who's writing it?

How do they know
what they're writing about?

What's their motive?

And these confessions of
Thomas Wintour are confusing.

They survive in different versions,

written in the hands
of different secretaries.

But there are
consistencies between them.

And these are key, key sources

for what happened
in the Gunpowder Plot.

A lot of the detail comes out here

about what was happening in the room
when the conspirators

were actually having these
dangerous conversations.

It's like being a fly on the wall.

Wintour talks here about the first
time Robert Catesby told him

he'd thought of a way to bring back
the Catholic religion to England.

"In a word," Catesby says,

"it was to blow up the
Parliament House with gunpowder."

There it is.

"In that place have they done us
all the mischief."

So he means in that place -
the Parliament -

they have done the bad things
to us Catholics.

And, oh, this is...

It turns very dark here.

And he says, "Perchance God
has designed that place

"for their punishment."

For what they've done to the
members of the Catholic faith,

these people in the Parliament
have to die.

In a single blast, they would take
out the entire structure of power.

Targeting the opening day
of Parliament

meant the King and most of his
family would be at Westminster.

So would members of
the House of Lords

and MPs, who all had a
say in making the law.

But there was to be more
to the plot than this.

The explosion was supposed to
cause huge confusion in London,

and the plotters were going to
go galloping up to the Midlands

to rouse their supporters
for a rebellion.

They were also going to kidnap
the King's daughter,

his little girl, and set her up
as a Catholic puppet queen.

So this was supposed to be regime
change, new monarch, new government.

Catesby was building his team
and knew exactly who he needed.

Down here, we get for the first time

the mention of a very significant
name in connection with the plot.

Catesby tells Wintour to go abroad,

to go to the Spanish Netherlands,

and to bring back with him
"some confident gentleman..."

That means a gentleman he can trust.

"..such as you shall understand
best able for this business

"and named unto me Mr Fawkes."

So why was this Guy Fawkes
the best man for the job?

By the time Wintour went
to recruit Guy Fawkes,

Guy had been a soldier fighting in a
holy war for most of his adult life.

That must have given him
a key practical skill.

He was likely to have
worked with gunpowder.

This wasn't a suicide mission.

The plan was to light
the fuse and escape.

Guy Fawkes should have had
the know-how to do just that.

But I'm interested in
how else Guy's experience abroad

might have influenced him.

Now, even though there's a great
mass of 17th century documentation

about the Gunpowder Plot,

it's still quite hard for me to
grasp what pushed Guy over the edge,

what turned him from being
a rebel who wanted change

into an absolute radical
willing to kill.

I'm intrigued if modern
knowledge of extremism

can help me understand the lengths
to which Guy was willing to go.

So I've enlisted the help
of a journalist and author

who's written extensively on terror,
and particularly al-Qaeda.

Jason, why do you think the plotters
go abroad to recruit Guy Fawkes?

Because it's abroad that they'll
find exactly the person they need.

The one thing that's really
clear about more recent plots,

those in the last few decades,
is that spending time overseas

and then coming back
is absolutely crucial.

If they're overseas or, in fact, if
they're just a long way from home,

they can be kept in an environment
where the radicalisation process

is really very intense.

There are no other
influences getting in.

It's just the group, the ideology,
the other people in that group.

Someone who was involved
in terrorist training

have said to me once that the only
way that he could take a teenager

and turn them into the kind of
extremist actor that he wanted

was by taking them
away from their home,

and you put them in
a kind of camp somewhere,

in a particular environment where
you're surrounded by people

who are committed to the same cause.
That will work.

I mean, he said to me, if they go
back to their mum every night -

forget it.
That's not going to happen.

If they're in an environment
that's outside their own

kind of domestic environment,
then you can really see

that the radicalisation processes
will happen quite fast.

Do you think it's significant
that Guy Fawkes himself

had been working as a soldier?

Oh, yeah, very much so.

In that real kind of
hothouse environment,

his commitment and his tolerance
for violence, also,

will be reinforced,
get higher and higher and higher.

So I think it's really important

that he was what we would now
call a foreign fighter.

He'd got skills,
got psychologically hardened there,

was exposed to some probably
quite traumatic experiences,

and then came back and is
absolutely perfect to fit into

this plot that is pre-existing.

Jason, do you have any insight
into what makes a person

willing to go all the way
and kill loads of people?

The whole thing about terrorism
is it's not a science.

What you can say is that
whoever does it...

..needs to believe that it is
the only thing they can do

in those circumstances.

They're very often seeing
their community,

or the people they identify with,
as under threat.

Now, that might be wrong -
often is -

but that's what they see.

And that then justifies
what they think they have to do.

No alternative?
There's no alternative.

It is now, it is urgent,

and they have to be the ones
who will do it.

In May 1604,

the core plotters came together
to take an oath of secrecy

and make plans.

While Catesby was known
to the authorities,

Guy Fawkes wasn't.

He was able to move
around without suspicion.

Thomas Percy also now joined.

He was the brother-in-law of
John and Christopher Wright

but, crucially, he was also a
member of the King's Bodyguard.

With easy access to Westminster,

he rented the cellar
beneath the parliamentary complex,

where the gunpowder would be hidden.

Preparations would take
more than a year.

Meetings of Parliament were
postponed, so the date slipped.

Plans were carefully made for the
Midlands part of the rebellion.

Funds had to be raised.

That meant the network
of conspirators grew.

These were cousins,
brothers, friends.

It was a cell of mostly wealthy men

hoping for more power
under a regime change.

On the 4th of November, 1605,

the stage was finally
set for attack.

The following day, the King
was due to open Parliament,

but underneath the Parliament -
in the old building, not this one -

Guy Fawkes was waiting
with his 36 barrels of gunpowder.

But now the plotters' network
had widened, there was a leak.

An anonymous letter had been
sent to a Catholic peer

warning him not to go
to the opening of Parliament.

That letter was passed on
to the authorities.

On the night of November the 4th,

with conspirators poised
for rebellion around London

and in the Midlands, Guy Fawkes
waited for his big moment.

But the King had ordered
two searches of the cellars

beneath Parliament,
and in the early hours of the 5th...

..Guy was discovered.

The most radical part of
their plot had collapsed.

But some in the group believed
the rest of the uprising

might still succeed.

Guy was brought to the Tower
of London to be interrogated.

This was now a race against time.

On the one hand, the authorities
wanted to know, who is this man?

Who else might be involved?
What else might be planned?

On the other hand, Guy Fawkes wanted
to stall for as long as possible.

If this rebellion
was going to succeed,

then Catesby and the rest
of them needed time

to rouse up their supporters.

Catesby had built a cell of men
willing to go to extremes.

He must have felt like their future
now hinged on Guy's interrogation.

I want to know exactly
how committed Guy was to this plot.

Records from the time tell us
what was said in the interrogation,

but a modern perspective
might help me delve

into Guy's state of mind
under pressure.

So I'm meeting a psychologist

who works as a registered
intermediary in police interviews

and has designed an app
to evaluate interview technique.

Laura, this is the actual room
where Guy Fawkes was questioned.

You spend a lot of your time

in investigative interview
situations, don't you?

Yes, I do. Bit different to this.

Very different.
This is a very grand room.

I guess the idea was these are
really grand surroundings.

This represents
the majesty of the King,

and you're just a little worm.
Yeah, definitely.

You're meant to feel intimidated

when you walk into
an interrogation room.

And how does Guy Fawkes
stand up to the questioning?

Yeah, so what the app allows us to
do is see when there are significant

turning points in an interview
or an interrogation.

So this here maps out
the interrogation

on the second day with Guy Fawkes.

In the early stages, he's very
happy to answer questions

about facts that are probably known.

For example, "Whether did you convey
yet in barrels or otherwise?" -

how he carried the gunpowder.

And then he says in barrels.
So he's answering those questions.

He's given them that information.

But it's clear to everybody
it was in barrels

because he was caught there.

He's merely confirming the details
that are already known. Yeah.

But we do see a switch
as the interrogation goes on.

What this app allows us to see
is that he then closes down.

His responses drop down to the red.

So the first one is when they
start demanding where he was

in the nights leading up
to the actual plot.

And they don't know
that information.

And they don't know
that information.

And what does he say?
He says he has forgotten.

He's forgotten! And you can see it

all the way through
the interrogation.

When they are asking him questions
about facts they do not know,

such as his location
or the other conspirators,

he does not give them
any information.

So, as the questions get
more important, as it were,

he's basically saying, "Up yours.
I'm not telling you anything."

Absolutely. And he seems, when you
read through this interrogation,

he seems very much in control.

He's obviously an extremist.

And there are two main
schools of thought

around why they engage
with that type of behaviour.

The first one is that there
are mental health problems,

they are delusional, and they are
going through with these acts

in a chaotic state of mind.

I don't necessarily see that in the
interrogations with Guy Fawkes.

He actually appears to be
quite the opposite.

Which leads us nicely on to
the second school of thought -

that actually it's because
they are very controlled.

They have this duty and they won't
stop at anything to do it.

And when Guy Fawkes is caught
red-handed, when he's interrogated,

you can see that he remains
that composed state.

He's not giving erratic information.

He's actually being very controlled

and very careful with what he is
providing to the interrogators.

I think he gives us a clue here
into his source of strength

because he says to the questioners,

"You would have me betray
my friends." Hmm.

"My friends." He's got friends.
He's part of something social. Yeah.

He sees himself as part
of a social group.

In his head, you know,
he knows that he's been caught,

but he's very much hoping
that the plot will still go ahead.

And so he's not giving away
any information

that will jeopardise that.

It seems to me that Guy's belief
in the plot was extremely deep.

But I've come to the National
Archives to examine the evidence

for what it might have taken
to make him crack.

Now, this completely
astonishing document

is in the King's own handwriting.

So it's a little window
into his mind,

and it explains how the King
wants the interrogation done.

He says, if Guy Fawkes
won't confess,

then "the gentler tortures..."

Tortures!

"..are to be first used unto him."

And then, after that, the King
actually goes into Latin

because what he's saying
is so dark and serious.

He says, "Et sic per gradus
ad ima tenditur."

That means the tortures
are to be increased

little by little until you get
to the very worst.

Torture was technically illegal,

but the King would sanction it
to bring down the plotters.

This document is a record
of what Guy Fawkes said

in his interrogation.

This is the 7th of November.

And at the end of the session,
they got him to sign his name,

supposedly to show that it was an
accurate reflection of his words.

But when we fast forward two days,

you can see he's finally cracked...

..because at the end of this session

where they've asked him
to sign his name,

he can hardly write,

which suggests - and this
is really brutally awful -

that during those two days
he's been tortured so badly,

whether using the thumbscrews
or the rack or whatever,

that he's lost the use of his hands.

Despite all of his confidence

and his ability to
withstand interrogation

that he showed earlier on,
he's finally broken.

But the irony is Guy's naming
of his accomplices was irrelevant.

While Guy was being questioned
in the Tower,

the authorities were already
hunting for known Catholics

who had left London suddenly.

On the 5th of November,
hearing Guy Fawkes had been caught,

Catesby sped here to the Midlands,

still determined he could
start a rebellion.

But in reality,
support was dwindling.

Within days, the authorities
had the plotters surrounded

in a Catholic safe house
in Staffordshire.

I've got an account here
by Thomas Wintour,

who was holed up in the house
with them,

and it's brilliant because he
takes us right into the drama

of the situation.

It says here that Wintour
asked them - the others -

"what they resolved to do"

and they answered,
"We mean here to die."

Wintour's confession gives us the
detail of Catesby's last minutes.

He says he and Catesby were standing

"before the door
they were to enter".

That's the authorities.
They're just about to burst in.

And Catesby said,

"Stand by me, Tom,
and we will die together."

Catesby, Thomas Percy
and the two Wright brothers

were shot and killed
on the 8th of November.

It's hard not to feel emotional

at the thought of these loyal
friends dying together.

Catesby was willing to take
a bullet - a lethal bullet -

for his beliefs.

But don't forget, he was
very willing to kill other people

for his beliefs as well.

He was willing to take
the lives of hundreds,

if not thousands, of people.

Four men were dead,

but the surviving plotters

would face the consequences
of their actions.

The trial of Guy Fawkes
and the other remaining conspirators

was held here in Westminster Hall
on January the 27th, 1606.

This is one of the few parliamentary
buildings that remain from the time.

This whole vast hall was full
of a crowd who'd paid to get in.

There was a real squeeze on space.

Some members of
Parliament complained

that they hadn't been able
to get decent seats.

Guy Fawkes and the
other conspirators

were up on a little platform,

and there was even a rumour
that the King himself was present,

hidden away, secretly listening in.

This was a show trial
lasting just one day.

It was used to target
the conspirators' priests,

suggesting they'd
encouraged the plot.

Just a few days later, Guy Fawkes
and some of the other plotters

were taken to the yard
outside the Palace of Westminster

and they were brutally executed.

The plotters were gone,

but King James would not allow
the story to be forgotten.

In fact, in the archives, high
above the Palace of Westminster,

is the document which wrote the
remembrance of the 5th of November

into law.

Here it is. Oh, yes!

This Act says that, every year
on the 5th of November,

everybody in the whole country is
to go to church to give thanks.

It's, like, literally remember,
remember the 5th of November.

What are they to give thanks for?

Let's have a look.

The hero of the story seems
to be the amazing king himself.

It was the King himself
who was able to understand

the "dark phrases" of a letter -

that was the tip-off letter.

It was the King who thereby

"miraculously was able to
discover the hidden treason".

So, basically, the Act says
everybody must give thanks to God

for the King because
he saved the country.

Whether or not he really saved
the nation,

King James made it clear
that God was on his side -

the Protestant side -

and he helped to ensure
that people in Britain

would celebrate the 5th of
November for centuries.

In 1605, Guy Fawkes
and the other conspirators

were united by a very specific
desire for change.

But now Guy's face has been
transformed into a broader symbol

of protest and rebellion,

with little connection
to the original deadly plan.

The radical violence at the heart
of the plot seems forgotten.

Yet I think it's the journey to
extremism that's worth remembering.

The Gunpowder Plot happened
at a time of deep divisions

and high stakes.

People had strong beliefs that
sometimes led to extreme actions.

Time gives us perspective

and the space to start to understand
the motivations of both sides.

But perhaps we should be mindful

about what and who we
choose to celebrate.

Next time...

In 1066, one battle
didn't win the war.

How did William the Conqueror manage
to take over an entire country?

I think it must have been a really
terrifying time for them.

William has got blood
on his hands for this.