Gunpowder, Treason & Plot

by Michael Shackleton · December 2, 2006

GUNPOWDER, TREASON & PLOT: A Novel, by David L Young. Anima Publishing, Suffolk. 2006. 234pp.

Reviewed by Michael Shackleton

Guy Fawkes belongs to the history of England, but in South Africa he has little meaning other than a name attached to the annual fireworks of November 5.

David Young tries to give us a historical context and appreciation of the big repercussions of November 5, 1605 in British history. A small group of Catholic loyalists were determined to dethrone King James I, a Catholic who supported the ascendancy of Protestantism, by destroying king and parliament in one terrible blow, by igniting barrels of gunpowder secretly placed beneath Westminster Hall.

Today, this indiscriminate use of explosives to slaughter innocent and unsuspecting people would correctly be labelled as an act of terrorism. But what were the circumstances of the time, and was the plan an honest and sincere way to gain justice for marginalised Catholics? This is one of the questions the author examines as he cleverly weaves his way through this historical novel.

There is more than one narrator of the story, which makes the reader aware of the issues at stake. The Gunpowder Plot was not masterminded by Guy Fawkes, who was a soldier skilled in the use of gunpowder, but by Robert Catesby in league with other prominent Catholic men. Fawkes joined them willingly.

The conspirators were naive and astonishingly unconscious of how their clandestine meetings in various taverns were attracting the attention of the king’s men. Fawkes was easily tracked to the cellars below parliament, where he was immediately arrested. Because he was caught in the act, his name has forever been the first one thinks of when referring to the Gunpowder Plot.

The barbaric executions of the conspirators is described graphically. Here the reader can take in and digest just how bitter was the divide between Protestantism and Catholicism in England.

David Young, a teacher of English and history, has used his skills to blend historical facts, characters and events into a compelling tale. Lovers of history and of adventure will be satisfied by the detail and the intrigues of the saga that led to that day in 1605 that caused a greater-than-ever persecution of English Catholics more than 400 years ago.