Remember, remember
Once upon a time, in fact, once upon a very long time ago, in fact, four hundred and nineteen years ago — less about 50 days — a bunch of stupid people got together and decided they wanted to make England great again. A man named Robert Catesby, together with twelve other lunatics, stacked the undercroft of the House of Lords in Parliament with enough barrels of gunpowder to blow the bejesus out of King James I and his ministers — all the way to the Land of Oz.
Upon murdering virtually everyone in the King’s government they hoped to send the nation into chaos. In the confusion of that chaos they hoped to install the King’s nine year old daughter as a puppet Queen. It was their vainglorious conceit, based on half-baked and vaguely-hatched plans, that they would run the government from behind the throne. It was a religious conceit. They decided they had been chosen by God to restore the nation to His true Catholic faith.
They selected one of their dumbest members, Guy “Guido” Fawkes, to guard the gunpowder while they hid out in another part of London and chuckled over the carnage they planned to cause the following day. But, as is true with all real conspiracies of any size larger than two, the plot leaked and the King’s men searched the undercroft, found the horrified and astounded Fawkes and arrested him.
Before long, every member of the plot was either arrested and executed, or killed in furtherance of capture. The glorious conflagration they hoped to create was no more. It had been stopped barely in the nick of time. The nation narrowly escaped a most infamous tribulation and cataclysm — by a single cat’s whisker.
Perhaps. Apart from the barrels of gunpowder stacked below Parliament, the rest of the plotters had their own supply from the same cache. In escaping to the countryside they discovered their gunpowder was wet. So the bomb they so carefully laid below Parliament might never have gone off. The “geniuses” banked a huge fire near their own supply of gunpowder in order to dry it out. They were lucky they didn’t blow the bejesus out of themselves as well.
This infamous plot was commemorated by a bit of doggerel that begins, “Remember, remember, the 5th of November/Gunpowder, treason and plot/I see no reason/Why gunpowder treason/Should ever be forgot. And so on.
Every year in England and elsewhere in the nation, people young and old gather around a bonfire on each fifth of November and celebrate — what? I’m not clear on what they’re celebrating and neither are they. But any excuse for roistering and drinking is valid in the Land of Blighty.
Anyway, a stupid plot to destroy a nation was thwarted on that distant November 5th, long ago. And so, too, will ours. This November fifth we will stop a bunch of morons from taking over our government. We will frustrate and ruin Trump and his stupid followers with their wet gunpowder and backward ideals. We will do so with our overwhelming vote.
Perhaps we should similarly commemorate that date in years to come, with roistering and alcohol. Maybe so. Remember, remember the fifth of November. I doubt we shall ever forget. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.