Bonfire Bangers on Guy Fawkes Night

Halloween is a collection of traditions that have come down from pagan harvest festivals with a layer of Christian icing spread over the top. The secular aspects of the holiday often are overlooked. Perhaps the most important is the Gunpowder Plot.

When Elizabeth I took the throne in 1533, England was wracked with religious upheaval. Her successor and sister, Mary, had attempted to reimpose Catholicism on their subjects. Elizabeth restored the Church of England but religious unrest continued to simmer for seventy years. It boiled over in 1605 when a dozen Catholic revolutionaries attempted to blow up King James I and his entire government.

Gunpowder Treason and Plot

The plan was simple—pack an abandoned coal cellar beneath Westminster with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder the opening day of Parliament, November 5, 1605. It was enough to level nearby Westminster Abbey and most of the buildings in the Old Palace complex. Everyone was scheduled to attend that day, including James I and members of the royal family. His children, however, would not be there. The conspirators planned to kidnap them and set up nine year old Princess Elizabeth as their puppet queen.

The man chosen to lay the charges and light the fuse was an explosives expert from York, Guy Fawkes. Fawkes had spent ten years fighting for the Catholic cause in the Dutch Revolt.

On November 4^th he took to the cellar beneath Westminster and patiently awaited the dawn of what he believed would be a glorious Catholic coup.

Alerted to the plot by an anonymous letter, government officials searched Westminster and the buildings around it. They found Fawkes in the cellar guarding what looked like a pile of iron bars, stones and timber. When questioned, he claimed to be the servant of the man in whose name the cellar had been rented.

The officials went on with their search but came up empty-handed. Around midnight, they returned to Fawkes and discovered he had in his possession a tinder-box and a dark signal lantern. When they dug beneath the pile he guarded, they found the barrels of gunpowder.

Fawkes was taken to the Tower of London where a confession was tortured out of him. He eventually named his co-conspirators. They all were tried and executed in January, 1606.

Parliament subsequently decreed that parish churches conduct a thanksgiving service every November 5th. (The tradition lasted until 1859.) Given the association with gunpowder, as well as the closeness to the pagan fire festival of Samhain on November 1st, Guy Fawkes Night was soon marked with bonfires and fireworks.

During the week leading up to Bonfire Night, children constructed effigies of Guy Fawkes out of old straw-stuffed clothing. The effigies were then burned on the bonfire. Before the event, the children went around the community begging “a penny for the guy.” Money collected was spent on fireworks.

And what celebration could be complete without food? Bonfire Parkin—a cake made of oatmeal, molasses and ginger, and Bonfire/Plot Toffee became popular Guy Fawkes Night treats. But no Fireworks Night party was complete without the Englishman’s favorite—bangers (sausages) and potatoes roasted in the bonfire.

Today, every opening session of Parliament is preceded by a symbolic search of the basement by the Yeoman of the Guard. In 1834, fire damaged the actual cellar in which the gunpowder was discovered. The cellar was totally destroyed when Westminster was rebuild in 1840.

Please remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder treason and plot

I see no reason why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy, guy, guy

Poke him in the eye

Put him on the bonfire

And there let him die.

Jane Austen: Sleeping with the Saints

July 15th is St. Swithin’s day, the patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. He was bishop there at the time of his death in 862 A.D. Swithin was dedicated to the building of churches and bridges and spent much of his time on construction sites, visiting with the workers and local residents. On his deathbed, he requested burial in the churchyard rather than a cathedral crypt so that his body “might be subject to the feet of passers-by and to the raindrops pouring from on high.”

St. Swithin earned his reputation as a weather saint when his body was moved to a shrine inside the Cathedral on July 15, 971 A.D. This “translation” is said to have been delayed by rain which continued for forty days, giving rise to the saying:

St. Swithin’s day if thou does rain

For forty days it will remain

St. Swithin’s day if thou be fair

For forty days will rain no more

Swithin is also the patron saint of apple growers. Rain on St. Swithin’s Day is said to be a blessing on the crop. Tradition states no apples should be picked or eaten before July 15^th.

Winchester Cathedral

Many early Saxon kings and clergymen are buried in Winchester Cathedral. The Viking conqueror Canute and his wife Emma are there, along with William I, son of William the Conqueror. Izaak Walton lies in the Fishermen’s Chapel. But by far the most well-known is Jane Austen.

In May,1817, Ms. Austen was so ill she took up residence at No. 8 College Street in the city of Winchester so she could be near her doctor. She died in her sister Cassandra’s arms in the early hours of July 18, 1817. Her body was interred in the Cathedral’s north aisle just before prayers on July 24^th. Austen’s stone reads:

In Memory of
JANE AUSTEN,
youngest daughter of the late
Revd GEORGE AUSTEN,
formerly Rector of Steventon in this County

She departed this Life on the 18th of July1817,

aged 41, after a long illness supported with

the patience and hopes of a Christian.

The benevolence of her heart,
the sweetness of her temper, and
the extraordinary endowments of her mind

obtained the regard of all who knew her and

the warmest love of her intimate connections.

Their grief is in proportion to their affection

they know their loss to be irreparable,
but in their deepest affliction they are consoled

by a firm though humble hope that her charity,

devotion, faith and purity have rendered
her soul acceptable in the sight of her

REDEEMER.

Adjacent to her grave is a brass memorial plaque erected by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, from the proceeds of his Memoir of Jane Austen. The Jane Austen Society sees to it fresh flowers are place there every week.

Jane Austen

known to many by her

writings, endeared to

her family by the

varied charms of her

Character, and ennobled

by Christian Faith

and Piety, was born

at Steventon in the

county of Hants, Dec.

xvi mdcclxxv and buried

in this Cathedral

July xxiv mdcccxvii

“She openth her

mouth with wisdom

and in her tongue is

the law of kindness.”

Prob xxxi xxvi

There is much speculation about why Ms. Austen wasn’t buried in Steventon or her beloved Chawton, but in Winchester Cathedral--an honor afforded only the most important personages. Clearly, from the wording of her headstone, she'd not yet achieved notoriety as the great author we know her to be today. In a February 22, 2003 article for the Jane Austen Society of Australia (Jane Austen and Winchester Cathedral), Paul Henningham postulates she was interred there because anyone who died within the Cathedral Close had a right to be. (The “close” is the buildings attached or appended to a church. In this case, the Winchester Cathedral precinct wall ran along the north side of College Street.) Ms. Austen’s brother Henry had recently undergone his ordination exam and likely petitioned the Bishop. In addition, Jane’s friend Elizabeth Heathcote, (widow of the Rev. William Heathcote, a Cathedral Canon) also lobbied to have her buried there.

Perhaps the reason they wanted Jane buried there was because her parents were married at "old" St. Swithin's in Bath in 1764, and her father was buried at "new" St. Swithin's in 1805. It must have seemed like Providence when she passed away under the auspices of St. Swithin in Winchester.

Ms. Austen was the last person interred in the Cathedral because of a rising water table.