The gunpowder plot was the most notorious treason in British history. The public reputation of Guy Fawkes would endure for centuries but, unlike Campion, that reputation was wholly negative, perpetuated annually in popular culture on bonfire night.
This demonisation was fully on display at Fawkes’s trial in January 1606. There was no and parliament. Leading the prosecution case, Sir Edward Coke doubt about his guilt: he had been arrested in the cellars underneath parliament, next to the barrels of gunpowder intended to blow up both king (pictured) gave a speech full of hyperbole, exclaiming that “these are the greatest treasons that ever were plotted in England”. Coke portrayed treason like a tree: the “powder treason” had deep roots and had arisen “out of the dead ashes of former treasons” – in other words, out of Catholic treachery in the reign of Elizabeth.
While Fawkes’s guilt was clear, the authorities were less sure about his motivation. Historians agree that the plotters especially wanted revenge against an anti-Catholic regime. From 1603 they had expected toleration from the new Stuart king, James VI & I, and felt betrayed when this did not occur.