Was the Guy Fawkes incident an anti-Catholic "False Flag"?

Might the Guy Fawkes incident be an issue of Anglican history? The 1662 Book of Common Prayer has a section entitled:
Form of Prayer for the 5th Day of November. [Guy Fawkes' Day]
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/nov5.pdf
It includes passages like:

Also allegedly involved in the plot were a number of other Catholics including Guido "Guy" Fawkes, a veteran of the military. Fawkes was supposedly given charge of the explosives. One version of the "official" story is that he was caught in the act, just as he was lighting the fuse attached to the pile of gunpowder. At their trial on Jan. 27, 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Almost all of them had confessed after weeks of brutal torture. The Protestant ruling elite subsequently used the Gunpowder Plot to continue cracking down on the practice of Catholicism in England and foment perpetual war with England's neighbors. Additional Catholics--lay and clergy alike--were hunted down, tortured and either imprisoned or executed. Many Catholics went into hiding...
Was the plot even possible? Was it more likely that members of a government faction had set up the plot themselves using infiltrators and double agents?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Gunpowder-Plot-17th-Century-False/dp/1937787265

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Conspiracies: The Facts. The Theories. The Evidence.
By Andy Thomas

Thomas continues:

 

Philip Barrington made a good remark on his site:

https://philipbarrington.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/was-guy-fawkes-framed



Just about to light the match?
Really?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/history/tudors_stuarts/the_gunpowder_plot/revision/6/

 

The political situation in England was still reasonably tense (1605) and subject to a bit of see-sawing. Henry VIII had been made Defender of the Faith, and had his parliament pass the ten articles into legislation in 1536 - which includes a very strong statement on the blessed sacrament -

4. The substantial, real, corporal presence of Christ's body and blood under the form of bread and wine in the Eucharist​

Following that, the separation from Rome, and then Edward under regency where there was a swing favoring continental reformed positions, followed by Mary who restored the Catholic position, and Elizabeth who leant more heavily to a separated position, perhaps more in line with her Father, and ultimately the Elizabethan settlement. This allowed the Catholics to survive, however they were not encouraged, and to some extent they were mistrusted, and over-taxed. They look forward to relief (and quite probably had been promised it) when James ascended the throne. James however was more protestant than they had imagined, and they found little relief and more pressure.

Most of the arguments that there was a real plot, and that this group of people had intended to blow up the Houses of Parliament and the King, are really a little far fetched, though it is a great story. The Houses of Parliament are in all honesty likely to be a very difficult building to do a great deal of damage to without a great deal of planning and some significant expertise.

There is no doubt that the result of the story was to ensure that the King never gave the Catholics and inch. Politically it was a huge selling point to keep the King protestant. Whilst it is hard to see after the long period of Elizabeth, and the relative stability it had brought, that the Kingdom would have been likely to flip again, however if you were looking for a candidate who might flip on the faith, it was undoubtedly James - a catholic Mother and a protestant wife.

None the less, on the grounds that it is highly unlikely that anyone could have acquired 36 barrels of Gunpowder - evidence of which was never presented, either in substance, nor evidence of it's purchase as all Gunpowder was owned by the crown - and the almost undoubted reality that the so-called confession was acquired after extended questionable incarceration and dubious interrogation proceedings - and no evidence or display of the tunnel, nor of the significant amount of debris that such a tunnel would have required. I am prepared to suggest on the balance of probability Guy Fawkes was innocent.

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I know. There are lots and lots of things that don't add up about that official story. If it was just a few unascertained details, we might reasonably trust the official version, but with so many conflicts, it looks very unlikely. People I think believe the official story in Britain because it fit their "political" interests, ie they were Protestant as a public, and because they strongly trust The Crown. That intense trust to the detriment of critical thinking explains why the Popish Plot hysteria was able to claim so many innocent victims on even more spurious pretenses within the century.

Meanwhile, it was common for Catholics to perceive the government as involved, because of their own political biases. If you used a jury that was half Catholic, some people would get acquitted based on reasonable doubt, like Fr. Garnet whose supposed crime was IIRC not reporting all confessions made to him about the event that were made before the event.

There are so many issues. Frst of all, isn't it basically a suicide mission, considering how big the explosion was planned to be? In that case, what was the point of him having a stopwatch, a centrepiece of the trial? And then there was the story that the soldier Knyvett caught him right in the act of lighting the fuse on the very early morning of Nov 5, when the king and MPs obviously weren't even in Parliament yet. How could masses of people even believe and retell such a transparent story that he was caught igniting the fuse to blow up the king at a time when the king obviously wasn't in parliament?

How is it that the first time they found Guy Fawkes in the cellar on Nov 4 they found no 36 barrels of explosives? What was he doing there? And having found him while they were already on the alert for a plot, why would they let him go unless he had some good excuse?

Are you able to find out what happened to Wynyard or Whynniard, a Protestant connected to Lord Cecil who rented the premises to the conspirators? I read a mention that he died on Nov 5, the same day as the incident. That seems like a strange coincidence doesn't it?

In the prosecution's favor you are left with confessions procured through torture. You have the police claim that Fawkes was in the cellar, the weird super-vague unsigned Monteagle letter, the renting out of the lodgings in the conspirators' names, the unproven claim that there were 36 barrels there in the cellar, and Catesby's ride to the manor where he was caught and killed, even though he basically came out surrendering. So what objective evidence do you have that there was a real plot at all?

The best evidence is that the conspirators rented out the property, but that can simply mean that they were knowingly part of a larger plan made to look like a plot. The ringleaders Catesby and Tresham were both involved in the Essex Rebellion and captured, but released with a fine rather than death or imprisonment. So one writer proposed that it was at this moment that Catesby and Tresham agreed to become agents of Cecil, who was especially known for his secret police network. Catesby and Tresham were both killed or died before going to trial. In Tresham's ase this was especially odd because he was still alive when the other defendants were tried.

There is more objective evidence suggesting that there was not a real plot than to say there was one.

 

What are you guys talking about.
This is pretty inflammatory stuff to be talking about on an anglican site
(no pun intended...)

The next thing you will be suggesting that Shakespeare was a secret Catholic? Or maybe the Earl of Oxford?
Spreading tinpot theories ought to be done with care and in an intimate company of close friends...

 

True!

A very valid Question!

Very True!

Highly Questionable, and certainly would not pass muster in any real court these days!

Not only unproven also highly unlikely, no evidence, no chain of evidence, more like French that English Justice!

Basically None!

Very True!

On the grounds of means, motive and opportunity, I would conclude that they had not the means, and in reality neither did they have the opportunity, which leaves them with motive. Ultimate the publication of a failed plot did more to assist the protestant cause, than a successful plot would have advanced a Catholic cause. Ultimately if they planned to kill the King, they needed a succession plan. Charles would have been 5, so they would have needed a regency and there is not evidence of such a plan.

 

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer has a special service to commemorate the saving of King James from "Popish treachery" whereby the king had been "appointed as sheep to the slaughter" by Guy Fawkes and other supposed conspirators. The BCP prayer even says that the king and legislators were "then assembled in Parliament" when this happened.

Yet in fact, Fawkes was caught in the early morning hours even before the king and parliament were "assembled". The British government for a long time until the 1950's required commemorating the event. A group of Anglican bishops assembled and decided to kill the convicts with H.D.Q. (Source: http://pvewood.blogspot.com/2012/11/was-guy-fawkes-framed.html)

Yet a minority of scholars and writers have argued for centuries that the alleged "Gunpowder Plot" was not real but devised to look like one to suppress Catholicism. Philip Barrington who writes on this forum talked about this on his blog. Is this a worthy and relevant topic for Anglican history, considering its place in the 1662 BCP?

 

With a significant amount of good wine my friend.

 

I edited my last message to you a bit.

Means is hard to show. You have to argue that they had the money to buy what would be half a year's supply of the Crown's gunpowder production. The Spanish or French would have to be in on it since they couldnt procure such a vast amount from the crown or the citizenry at large.

Opportunity is the hardest to show, whereby so much powder was secretly moved into such a heavily guarded area.

Motive can make some sense if they were antagonistic to the crown and were violent hotheads, but so much collateral damage in blowing up a whole parliament does not seem in keeping with Catholic or actual Jesuit values. It's more in keeping with what anti-Catholics of the time might ascribe to Jesuits.

 

You guys are kind of indicting the famous service against Guy Fawkes, and the prayerbook that includes it, and all the bishops, priests, not to mention the kings who have prayed and endorsed it

Next we shall be discussing a minority of scholars who have argued that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare...

Everyone wants a piece of the glorious English history

 

I know that Anglicanism at least formally disagrees with the doctrine of extrabiblical "infallibility" of men, even when that includes the King and the bishops.

When it comes to the King's and bishops' agreement with HDQ, for example, it's just a simple matter that I disagree with them on it. In fact, were it possible, I could indict them for approving of brutality here. To say that it was normal "for the time" does not really make it OK, anymore than the prevalence of crucifixion meant that Jesus' death was humane.

Also under indictment: the words in the famous BCP prayer that the King and Parliament were "then assembled" when God delivered them from the alleged plot. Even if you go by the official version, the king was not "assembled" at parliament in the early hours of Nov 5 when Fawkes was allegedly arrested.

So we have a disagreement between a "famous service" and reality. What do you do at that point?

 

Philip and Spherelink,

The Parliament of the UK website gives credence to the dissident POV:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-commons-faqs/gunpowder-plot/

 

I think that one of difficulties people find is understanding the social context. The plot is 1605 - only 17 years after the Spanish Armada. Italy was not a nation, and the Pope had a deal of temporal power in Europe and not since Henry VIII so much in England. Roman Catholics were not warmly received as fellow followers of Jesus so much as seen as those who owed allegiance to another foreign power. Faith and Politics were dangerously mixed and confused.

 

I know what you mean. It represents a juncture of factors of major domestic and foreign political and religious issues.
Speaking of Italy, the British leader Cecil was trained in Venice, and the Venetians were in a hostile position with the Pope in that era. Machiavelli had written his cloak and dagger tracts only 50 years or so previously, and Italy had also been famous for the Biorgias and other backroom political dealings.

 

Cecil was a master of intrigue. If you are in the UK, they have a special TV show on this:

History's Ultimate Spies, [Episode] 3
"Robert Cecil was a formidable political operator, whose web of informers helped to foil the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. "
http://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/shows/historys-ultimate-spies/episodes/

"3/6. A profile of Robert Cecil, a formidable political operator who devised and established an extraordinary web of spies and informers designed to ensure King James I's security."
http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/dtf2dk/historys-ultimate-spies--s1-e3-robert-cecil

I was able to find a Russian video translation (dubbing) of the UK TV episode:
http://dok-film.net/10370-mastera-shpionazha-historys-ultimate-spies-2015.html

The video claims that Cecil manipulated so that one of the monarchs could get on the throne.
I couldn't find an English language version for you though.

One thing that is curious is what relation Cecil's network of spies and his renown for espionage could possibly have had to the Gunpowder plot, as I underlined above.
According to the official version, all that happened was that a random person, connected to the plot itself, warned Monteagle, since he was a relation to the coconspirator Tresheam, and then Monteagle himself took it to Cecil. Based on this official version, Cecil's spies played absolutely no role.

However, if you imagine that the plot itself was created by Cecil for political reasons as a "provocation" against Catholics, then the relevance of Cecil's renown for cloak and dagger makes sense.

One of the interviewees said Cecil would be like a character from an Ian Fleming novel with a Persian pet cat. He had a massive network of spies who watched the actions of the French and Spanish rulers.

 

Question about the underlined part: Maybe the plot with the Jesuits was made up and the Jesuits were not actually plotting against England at that time?

 

Right on cue, some Catholic rag writes up an article of how Shakespeare was a secret catholic
http://forums.anglican.net/threads/was-shakespeare-a-secret-catholic.1631/

The same Parliament that has voted for gay marriage and imposed it on England?

The Parliament as such is one big "dissident POV"

 

Not sure what your point is, since Philip Barrington and my other sources were not "Catholic rags".

The Reformed Protestant "rags" of the 16th century wrote up articles claiming the early Christians were in effect secret Reformed Protestants because the rag writers imagined that early Christians didn't believe in the real presence in the food. At one point, Reformed Protestantism was a dissident POV.

 

The Actual Pope:

Guy Fawkes' Festival Imagination of the Pope:

 

And again we read …. popish ….