Remember, Remember!
Today is November 5th. Back in England we children all looked forward to this date with eager anticipation. November 5th was known by various names: Fireworks Night, Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Night, Plot Night, and it was a day far more popular than Hallowe’en. We’d prepare for it by collecting “plot”, the name we gave to the piles of wood we’d need to build our bonfires. Every home had its own bonfire, and in the neighborhood parks there were some pretty huge ones. Mummy would make “plot toffee” and we’d sit around the bonfire baking potatoes and setting off fireworks, which were legal in England. On top of the bonfire we placed an effigy of the legendary Guy Fawkes himself, old clothes stuffed with straw, and we’d cheer as he burned, with only a vague idea of the historical implications of our actions, known to us from the familiar words of our children’s rhyme, “Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot!”
We hardly knew what we were supposed to be remembering—it was, after all, a long time since the Gunpowder Plot, a failed attempt to assassinate King James I of England during the State Opening of Parliament on November 5, 1605. The plan was organized by Robert Catesby, a devout English Catholic who hoped to kill the Protestant King James and establish Catholic rule in England. The popular reaction to this revolutionary act was swift and severe. It resulted in a rise of anti-Catholic sentiment, with protests and marches complete with effigies of the Pope and the chief conspirator Guy Fawkes, who had been charged with lighting the fuse to the 36 barrels of gunpowder hidden in the cellars of Parliament. We have been burning effigies of the “Guy” ever since, a long-lasting tribute to the hatred of the English for the religion of Rome back in 1605.
My childhood reminiscences have led me to fear one thing above all others as we cling perilously to our freedoms of speech and religion and the right to bear arms, already under attack in the United States. It is the fear of something similar to the Gunpowder Plot, especially if it’s conducted by Catholics. Or what’s more likely, a fake terrorism event that will be blamed on Catholics or other Christians. It’s not a new idea and has happened many times during history: Nero, who blamed the burning of his palace on the Christians; Hitler, who blamed the burning of the Reichstag on the Jews; Franklin Roosevelt, who probably allowed the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor so we could enter the war; there is even a strong popular rumor that the government was responsible for 9/11 to convince the American people into accepting the draconian security measures of the Patriot Act. And let’s not ignore the current outbreak of school shootings and other mass casualty criminal acts. Major wars and persecutions have so often been preceded by real or invented acts by a “common enemy”, be they Jews or Japanese, Catholics or gun owners.
We came close to such a phenomenon with the so-called “Insurrection” of January 6, 2021. A bunch of patriots, understandably angry about the news reports of vote tampering in the recent presidential election, protested outside the Capitol, and to their surprise were then allowed (and in some cases even encouraged) by Capitol police to enter the building and run riot. We saw the tyrannical backlash by the Biden government, who have obsessed in their persecution of every single person who was there. It seems like the whole thing was deliberately orchestrated in order to paint conservatives, and of course, President Trump himself, as Nazi thugs eager to overturn democracy and create an unconstitutional fascist dictatorship. That they have failed in this attempt is not necessarily a comfort. What it probably means is that the Deep State will attempt something far more disturbing in the future with large numbers of casualties and damage, something they can then pin on traditional Catholics who will then be openly defined as a terrorist organization. It may seem farfetched, but history teaches us that it has happened many times and can happen again. If it does, don’t cheer and dance in the streets—because they’ll be coming after you next!