Guy Fawkes: Who Was Really Behind the Gunpowder Plot?
Thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, a plot to blow up the King and Parliament, and a mysterious letter that may have saved them all. But was there more to the Gunpowder Plot than meets the eye?
In 1605, a band of Catholic conspirators hatched one of the most audacious assassination plots in British history. Their plan? Blow King James I and the entire political establishment to smithereens, kidnap his nine-year-old daughter and put her on the throne.
Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams revisit the extraordinary story of Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters, from secret meetings in a London pub and barrels of bargain-basement gunpowder to a spectacularly bungled escape in which the conspirators managed to blow themselves up.
But who betrayed them? Why did the authorities wait so long to act on a letter warning of the plot? And could the King's own ministers have allowed the conspiracy to unfold for political advantage?
With torture, treachery, religious persecution and a royal dynasty hanging in the balance, Robert and Kate explore the real story behind Bonfire Night, and ask whether Guy Fawkes was quite the villain we've been led to believe.
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