2-703-969 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Guy Fawkes before and after the Torture', 1897. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a failed assassination attempt against King James I. The plan was to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London with gunpowder stored in the cellars. The conspirators were caught however - Guy Fawkes (1570-1606) and others were tortured and then hanged, drawn and quartered, opposite the building they had planned to blow up, in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster. Fawkes is seen here with a 'guy', an effigy of himself traditionally placed on top of bonfires on Fireworks Night, (5 November). From "The Comic History of England" by Gilbert Abbott A Beckett, with satirical illustrations by John Leech. [Bradbury, Agnew & Co, London, 1897]