November is the month of Remembrance, we have All Souls on the 2nd when we remember those we have loved and see no more, a personal time of mentioning their names and giving thanks to God for their lives.

The second great act of remembrance is Remembrance Sunday the nearest Sunday to the original Remembrance Day when the dead of the World Wars and more recent conflicts are honoured in the Two Minute Silence . The Monarch, representatives of the Government, leaders of the Commonwealth, with Armed Forces and veterans lay wreaths at the Cenotaph in Whitehall to pay tribute to all who lost their lives. A Cenotaph is a memorial to those who have died elsewhere an 'Empty Tomb', this was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled  in 1920 as a national memorial and was re-dedicated in 1946 - a magnificent all- encompassing symbol of mourning and gratitude. A two minute ilence is also observed all over the country at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, people stop what they are doing and stand in silent respect and thought to honour those precious lives given for our freedom. This was the time and date of the Armistice though hostilities continued until the signing of a treaty in 1919.

I was born five years after WW2 ended and remember as a child watching my mother, tears streaming down her face, and my father standing silently to attention ,listening for the sound of the guns signalling the end of the Silence travelling down the Thames from Westminster.

Not to diminish the sorrow and the solemnity of those acts of remembrance I would like to tell of another time of remembrance not sorrowing or solemn squeezed between those two sad dates.....

In 1605 Roman Catholics were not happy with their new King,James the First, he was a Protestant ( although his mother, the executed Mary Queen of Scots was a Catholic). Since the death of Henry VIII the British nation see-sawed between Protestant Edward VI  ,Catholic Mary I , Protestant Elizabeth I and James I. To be a Catholic was dangerous, and to be caught worshipping  in the Catholic way was severely punished. So people pretended to be Protestant but secretly took Mass from Catholic priests .  These priests were given shelter and were hidden away in  hard to find places in the homes of their faithful followers. Some of these hiding places were only discovered in much more recent times; they were called priest holes. 

It was a serious business in some cases Bishops and high ranking politicians were beheaded or burnt at the stake for their beliefs, some achieving martyr status.  King James was a Protestant and a group of Catholic believers hatched a plot to blow up the King on the occasion of the opening of Parliament, when the Queen and children of the King would be attending. There were about ten main plotters but the names of Robert Catesby and  Guido (Guy)Fawkes were the most famous. Fawkes was a convert to Catholicism through his step father ,and as is often the case he was more fanatical. He had combat experience with explosives so he was given the job of igniting 60 odd barrels of gun powder hidden in the crypt under the House of  Lords.  

The opening of Parliament was due to happen on November 5th , fortunately one of the officials was warned in a letter not to attend the ceremony as there would be "A mighty blow struck".  On the night of the 4th/5th November Guy Fawkes was discovered with fuses and a 'darkened lantern'. He was arrested and put in the Tower of London to await a traitor's death of being hung ,drawn and quartered. Catesby and some of the other conspirators were hunted down and executed. The King did not open Parliament on the 5th, instead he proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and bonfires were lit, the day was to be kept in perpetuity as a remembrance of a tragedy narrowly averted. Sadly this only 'stoked the fires 'of anti -Catholic demonstrations and in years to come was used as an excuse to inflict attacks and harassment on known Catholic sympathisers. To this day the cellars under Parliament are searched before the Opening of Parliament.

Remember Remember the Fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot,

I know of no reason ,

Why  gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes was all intent,

To blow up the King and His Parliament,

With three score barrels and powder below,

To prove old England's overthrow...

By God's Providence he was catched

With darkened lantern and lighted match.......

Apparently John Milton wrote the original version of this poem which was in Latin, it is much longer and some of the older traditional versions called for the burning of the Pope,  the King and of course good Old Guy Fawkes,but this  is the only part I used to sing as a child...... 

To Be Continued     

Barbara Liddell