Monday, November 5, 2012

November 5: Guy Fawkes Night Prohibited

On this date in History .... 1775:

George Washington prohibited the celebration of Guy Fawkes Night among his troops.
 
Guy Fawkes, in 1605, was arrested for involvement in a plot to dig a tunnel under the Palace of Westminster, fill it with gunpowder and blow up Parliament during its ceremonial opening. Not only was it a plot to kill “the leading Protestant nobility” but also King James I. English Catholics wanted to kill the King and replace him with his Catholic daughter, Elizabeth. The date became an anti-Catholic holiday to celebrate the king’s life being saved which included burning the pope in effigy. 
 
In Washington’s General Orders of the day, he prohibited the “observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope”. He cited the allegiance and alliance of the French Catholics in Canada who were helping the Patriots in the Revolutionary battle against England and felt such festivities was “insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused." (source: http://memory.loc.gov)



 

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