It is not known exactly what date Guy Fawkes was born, possibly the 13th April 1570, but he was baptised on the 16th April 1570 at the Church of St Michael le Belfrey in York.
Guy Fawkes, or Guido Fawkes (the name he used when fighting in the Low Countries on the side of Spain), is obviously famous for being involved in The Gunpowder Plot, the plot to blow up the Palace of Westminster on the opening session of Parliament. It was Fawkes who was caught red-handed in the cellars beneath Westminster on the night of the 4th/5th November with 36 barrels of gunpowder.
On the 31st January 1606, Guy Fawkes and three of his fellow conspirators were dragged from the Tower of London to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, where they were to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Fawkes managed to cheat the executioner and crowd of the full horror of his sentence by jumping from the gallows and breaking his neck. His body was still quartered but he was already dead.
You can read more about Guy Fawkes and this famous plot in the following articles:-
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28 April 1603 – Funeral of Elizabeth I
Death of Sir Francis Walsingham – 6 April 1590
11 April 1554 – Execution of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger
Singeing the King of Spain’s Beard – April 1587 – The Spanish Armada
Sir Francis Drake Sets Sails from Plymouth for Spain – 2 April 1587
Death of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell – 14 April 1578
26 February 1564 – Baptism of Christopher Marlowe
Jumping off the scaffold was probably the smartest thing he did in his whole life.
Clever idea … jumping from the gallows. I can’t help but wonder why more people facing the same fate didn’t do it … were they prevented in some way? If so, why wasn’t he?
I think it was considered cowardly and unChristian; you were supposed to face your fate with as much dignity as you could, to show your remorse and repentence for the deeds that brought you to the scaffold, or at least a stoic acceptance of an unjust sentence (as we are all part of fallen mankind, inherently sinful and therefore deserving of death).
Guy Fawkes was actually fighting for the rights of Catholics to worship without being put to death, he may be described as some as traitorous but not unchristian or cowardly
Guy Fawkes was actually fighting for the rights of Catholics to worship without being put to death, he may be described as some as traitorous but not unchristian or cowardly