ePub Voices in the Mirror by Gordon Parks in History

Description

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. A group of English Catholics; seeking to unseat the king and reintroduce Catholicism as the state religion; daringly placed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the Palace of Westminster. Their aim was to ignite the gunpowder at the opening of the Parliamentary session. 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. 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; Antonia Fraser has untangled the web of religion; politics; and personalities that surrounded that fateful night of November 5. And; in examining the lengths to which individuals will go for their faith; she finds in this long-ago event a reflection of the religion-inspired terrorism that has produced gunpowder plots of our own time.