Guy Fawkes was the last of the surviving plotters to be executed and '
He made no speech, but with his crosses and idle ceremonies made his end upon the gallows and the block, to the great joy of all the beholders that the land was ended of so wicked a villainy.’
Although he was spared the horror of being disembowelled whilst still alive, Fawkes had been severely tortured to force him to give up his co-conspirators, James I wrote the royal warrant himself ‘I
f he will not other ways confesse, the gentler tortures are first to be used upon him, and then step by step you may employ the harsher, and so speede youre goode work.’ he almost certainly had his limbs dislocated on the rack and could barely walk when taken to the scaffold (so the idea that he "jumped" from the ladder seems unlikely. His signatures before and after imprisonment show the level of his torture
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Despite being already dead, Fawkes and the others were quartered and their heads and body parts were displayed on spikes around Westminster and London. "Bonfire Night" did not start as a popular celebration, but was instituted by James I in 1606 via a "thanksgiving act" called the "Observance of 5 November Act 1605" which mandated a special church service, bonfires and fireworks. This act remained in force until 1859..... by which time November 5th had become a traditional festival.
The irony is that Guy Fawkes, who was NOT one of the lead conspirators, just the man on the spot, has become a worldwide revolutionary figure.... thanks to the graphic artist David Lloyd, who created a mask for the 1982–1989 graphic novel "V for Vendetta" that has now been used during demonstrations from China to Venezuela.
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1688 - Overshadowed by Guy Fawkes is the arrival of William of Orange with 15,000 men. Originally planned to land at Harwich, William was forced to divert and finally landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688 with around 11,000 infantry, including nearly 5,000 members of the elite Anglo-Scots Brigade and Dutch Blue Guards, 3,660 cavalry and an artillery train of twenty-one 24-pounder cannon. Some 5,000 volunteers, consisting of British exiles and Huguenots, also accompanied the fleet to accelerate English army reforms, because they could replace the soldiers who were loyal to James. William also brought weapons to equip another 20,000 men, although the subsequent and rapid collapse of James' army meant that the 12,000 local volunteers who joined by 20 November were eventually dismissed.
This was the real start of the so-called "Glorious Revolution", which would then spread to Scotland and on to Ireland in the "Williamite War" which continued until 1691 and included well known events such as the siege of Derry, the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, the Battle of Aughrim in 1691, and the infamous Treaty of Limerick. A contemporary witness, George Story, calculated that this war had claimed 100,000 lives through sickness, famine, and in battle.
1987 - Eamonn Andrews, TV presenter died of heart failure, aged 64, at the Cromwell Hospital in London. Between 1955 and 1964, he had presented Sports Report on BBC Radio, then left to join ABC where he pioneered the chat show format in the UK, hosting his own show for five years. He was famous for links that did not work, like "Speaking of cheese sandwiches, have you come far?" This led to the parody character of "Seamus Android" performed on BBC Radio by Bill Pertwee in the 1960s programmes "Round the Horne". But he was most famous as the presenter of the UK version of "This Is Your Life", between its inception in 1955 and his death in 1987, which made him a household name.
