The Gunpowder Plot on This Day in History

 

Remember remember the fifth of November!

This day in history: The Gunpowder Plot happened on this day in 1605.  

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious persecution against Catholics.

The plot was to assassinate King James I of England and the whole of Protestant Parliament by blowing up the Palace of Westminster during the opening session of Parliament. This would have created a power vacuum, supposedly allowing the Catholic Church to seize power. A more likely reason for the plot is that it was an effort by Catholics to try and fight back against the strong anti-Catholic movement in the British government in the period of time around the Protestant Revolution. Fawkes was caught before he could put this plan into action. He was interrogated through torture. Torture was normally forbidden but James I permitted it with the words: "if he will not other wayes confesse, the gentler tortours are to be first usid unto him et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur [and so on step by step to the most severe] and so god spede youre goode worke." Fawkes was ultimately put to death along with his co-conspirators for treason and attempted murder. He died on January 31, 1606, by being hung, drawn and quartered.

His death is celebrated in Great Britain every year on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5 with fireworks and bonfires. This festival originated in the 17th century as a celebration of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, and an expression of anger at the conspirators (by burning Guy Fawkes in effigy), and was associated with English patriotism and anti-Catholic sentiments. Nowadays it has lost these connotations and is often known simply as "Bonfire Night". Traditionally a stuffed dummy or scarecrow, called a 'Guy', is put on the bonfire before it is lit.

A famous rhyme concerning Guy Fawkes goes as follows:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason, and plot,

I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent

To blow up the King and Parliament.

Three score barrels of powder below,

Poor old England to overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip hoorah!

The rhyme is often shortened to the first four lines.

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The Great Bible on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: King Henry VIII ordered English-language Bibles to be placed in every church on this day in 1541, and the Great Bible was provided for that purpose. The Great Bible was so named because of its size, it stood at 14 inches high. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale who  included much from the Tyndale Bible. As the Tyndale Bible was incomplete, Coverdale translated the remaining books of the Old Testament and Apocrypha from the Latin Vulgate and German translations, rather than working from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts. The Great Bible was also known by several other names as well: the Cromwell Bible, since Thomas Cromwell directed its publication; Whitchurch's Bible after its first English printer; the Chained Bible, since it was chained to prevent removal from the church. It has less accurately been termed Cranmer's Bible, since although Thomas Cranmer was not responsible for the translation, a preface by him appeared in the second edition.

While this Bible was allowed in churches, you were not allowed to take it home for study. 

Other early printed versions were the Geneva Bible (1560), notable for being the first Bible divided into verses and which negated the Divine Right of Kings; the Bishop's Bible (1568), which was an attempt by Elizabeth I to create a new authorized version; and the Authorized King James Version of 1611.

The first complete Roman Catholic Bible in English was the Douay–Rheims Bible, of which the New Testament portion was published in Rheims in 1582 and the Old Testament somewhat later in Douay in Gallicant Flanders. The Old Testament was completed by the time the New Testament was published but, due to extenuating circumstances and financial issues, it was not published until nearly three decades later, in two editions: the first released in 1609, and the rest of the OT in 1610. In this version, the seven deuterocanonical books (also known as the Apocrypha) are amongst the other books, as in the Latin Vulgate, rather than kept separate in an appendix. The Great Bible, as well as the 1611 King James Version also contained the Apocrypha.

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The First Catholic University in the US on This Day in History

 
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This Day in History: Georgetown College, the first Catholic university in the United States, was founded in Georgetown, Maryland on this day in 1789. 

Historically however, America has has a strong anti-Catholic sentiment. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. characterized prejudice against Catholics as "the deepest bias in the history of the American people." The historian John Higham described anti-Catholicism as "the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history".

Anti-Catholic attitudes were brought to the Thirteen Colonies by Protestant immigrants. Two types of anti-Catholic rhetoric existed in colonial society and they continued to exist into the following centuries. The first type, derived from the theological heritage of the Protestant Reformation and the European wars of religion (16th-18th century), consisted of the biblical Anti-Christ and the Whore of Babylon variety and it dominated anti-Catholic thought until the late seventeenth century. The second type was a secular variety which was partially derived from xenophobic and ethnocentric nativist sentiments and distrust of increasing waves of Catholic immigrants, particularly from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Québec, and Mexico. It usually focused on the pope's control of bishops and priests.

This Anti-Catholic sentiment was popular enough that The Menace, a weekly newspaper with a virulently anti-Catholic stance, was founded in 1911 and quickly reached a nationwide circulation of 1.5 million. 

Anti-Catholicism was widespread in the 1920s; anti-Catholics, including the Ku Klux Klan, believed that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy and that parochial schools encouraged separatism and kept Catholics from becoming loyal Americans. The Catholics responded to such prejudices by repeatedly asserting their rights as American citizens and by arguing that they, not the nativists (anti-Catholics), were true patriots since they believed in the right to freedom of religion.

With the rapid growth of the second Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 1921–25, anti-Catholic rhetoric intensified. The Catholic Church of the Little Flower was first built in 1925 in Royal Oak, Michigan, a largely Protestant town. Two weeks after it opened, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in front of the church.

Despite all of this, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the United States. The top ten list being:

1. The Catholic Church

2. The Southern Baptist Convention

3. The United Methodist Church

4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

5. The Church of God in Christ

6. National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

8. National Baptist Convention of America

9. Presbyterian Church (USA)

10. Assemblies of God. Source

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