Remember remember




Remember, remember the fifth of November - it speaks to us today

Robert Henderson

Anyone taking their cue from the mainstream British media would imagine
that Guy Fawke's night is merely an archaic piece of religious bigotry.
The papers and airwaves are alive with mediafolk and politicos
tut-tutting over the "anti-Catholic festival", with the more advanced
liberal bigots amongst them musing whether it should be banned as it
"incites hate", while the less straightforward propagandise for its
abolition under the shelter of "health and safety" with a recitation
of
the tremendous risks involved with bonfires and fireworks.

The truth, as ever with liberal bigots, is the exact opposite of what
they claim. To equate anti-Catholic feeling in 1605 (and for many
years afterwards) with simple, wilful hatred is to display a howling
ignorance of both history and of societies which are dominated by
religious belief.

By 1605 England had endured 70 years of incessant Catholic threat
since
the breach with Rome.* Under Mary Tudor she had had a very dirty
taste
of what a Catholic Restoration would mean, with burnings and general
persecution. Before English eyes were the constant sufferings of
Protestants on the Continent. The re-conversion of England to
Catholicism would mean at best the intolerance of the Inquisition
and
at worst a Catholic foreigner such as Mary's husband Philip II of
Spain sitting on the English throne. The great massacre of French
Protestants on St Bartholomew's Day in 1572 was dreadful warning of
what fate might await Protestants under a Catholic monarch.

Throughout the reign of Elizabeth, the fate of Protestantism hung by
precious few threads, the sturdiest of which was England. On the
continent only Sweden and the nascent power of the Dutch Republic stood
between the power of Spain, the great agent of the
counter-Reformation. Most of Europe remained Catholic. The two
greatest continental kingdoms, Spain and France were Catholic and
the
(Catholic) Holy Roman Empire under the Hapsburgs was still a
considerable force. Had England fallen to Rome the
Counter-Reformation would in all probability have triumphed. Had the
Dutch Republic failed England would have been utterly isolated as a
Protestant kingdom.

An analogy with the position that England found itself under between
the 1530s and 1605 would be that of Britain in WW2 before America
joined the war. Yet the Elizabethan situation was more perilous by
far.
The WW2 situation lasted for less than 30 months; that of England in
1605 had lasted 70 years and would last the Lord knew how much longer.
Worse, there was no great overseas help to be had because there was no
Elizabethan equivalent of the USA or the Empire and the population of
England was tiny (3-4 million at best) compared to the powers which
opposed her.

During the 45 years following Elizabeth's accession (1558) Spain had
three times tried and failed to invade England (1588, 1596, 1597). As
recently as 1601 Spain invaded Ireland and joined with Irish forces,
but was defeated at the battle of Kinsale in Co. Cork.

To these external threats may be added the incessant Catholic plots
against Elizabeth's life throughout her reign, with the shadow of Mary
Queen of Scots covering most of them until her long overdue execution
in 1586.

The mentality of those English Catholics who were prepared to act
against the Crown was treasonable in the extreme. They're cast of mind
is exemplified by Reginald Pole, whom Mary Tudor rewarded with the
Archbishopric of Canterbury and the Pope rewarded with a cardinal's
red
hat. Pole fled England after falling out with Henry VIII. He then wrote
a pamphlet imploring all Catholic powers of the day from the emperor
Charles V to Frances I of France to invade England and for all
Englishmen to support the invaders.

For men such as Pole religion was all. To make England Catholic was
their only end. There was no arguing with them. Like the fanatic Muslim
today everything else subordinate to their religion. As Catholics,
their loyalty was to the Pope not to their king or country. The
Catholic
traitors of Elizabeth's reign would have willingly allowed a creature
such as the Duke of Alva to land and devastate England as he had
devastated the Low Countries. Nothing was too terrible if it meant
England was to became Catholic once more.

Truly, England in 1605 had no reason to doubt that she was under
threat from within and without her shores.

The modern British mind has difficulty with understanding that
religion
was a very different beast to what it is today. It does not understand
that religion was not a quiet, private activity then but rather
something which coloured the whole of life. Unbelief if it existed kept
its head well buried. Intelligent, educated men were often ecstatic in
their devotion and the poor if deficient in theology mixed their
Christianity with a healthy dose of pagan superstition, vide the witch
mania of the time.

Because religion was taken seriously, not only the fate of the
individual soul but the fortunes of a country seemed to rest on the
performance and nature of the religion of the country. Hence, to a
Protestant the maintenance of England as a Protestant nation was as
vital as its re-conversion to Catholicism was to a Catholic. This
belief, coupled with the actual behaviour of Counter-Reformation
Catholic countries towards Protestants , was enough to persuade any
English Protestant that nothing worse than a Catholic England could be
envisioned.

Religion was then a political question, the most important political
question of the day and Catholics of necessity were traitors because
they had to give their loyalty to the Pope. That was the long and
short
of it for Protestant England.

The response to the gunpowder plot was, in the context of the day,
extraordinarily mild. The plotters had encompassed a plan the like of
which had never been attempted before and which arguably has never been
made reality anywhere ever. They designed to kill the entire English
ruling elite, including the King, in one fell swoop. A more clinical
and diabolically simple means of revolution cannot be imagined. No
wonder the English elite were terrified and the people easily roused
to
rage. There was some tightening of the laws and their enforcement
against Catholics, but there was no English St Bartholomew's Day
against them.

The creation of a day of commemoration by Parliament on the 5th of
November was a brilliant political act which kept the danger of further
Catholic plots and invasions before the people. Its popularity and
longevity as a truly anti-Catholic festival shows that Parliament was
utterly in tune with the people.

The festival has renewed relevance today with the re-importation of
fanatic religion in the form of Islam whose adherents acknowledge no
country and who, like the Catholic church of old, seek nothing less
than the encompassing of the world within their faith. Plus ca
change...

*England's position before Henry VIII's breach with Rome has
startling similarities with Britain's position today. Catholic
England
was a country subject to a foreign power (the Papacy) to whom she paid
an annual tribute (Peter's Pence) and from whom she suffered constant
interference with her internal affairs (clerical appointments). In
addition, Catholic England had to bear institutions on her soil which
were directly controlled by the foreign power (religious houses
founded
under the direct authority of the Papacy) and every English man and
woman owed their first allegiance to the Pope as Christ's vicar on
Earth.

Today Britain is subject to a foreign power (the EU) to whom she pays
an
annual tribute (the difference between what is paid to Brussels and
what
we get back) and from whom she suffers constant interference with her
internal affairs (virtually everything). In addition, Britain suffers
has to bear institutions on her territory which are controlled by the
foreign power (foreign inspectors of various sorts) and the foreign
power is attempting to make allegiance to the foreign power superior to
Britons allegiance to Britain. (EU citizenship, the EU Constitution).
--
Robert Henderson
Blair Scandal website:  http://www.geocities.com/blairscandal/
Personal website:  http://www.anywhere.demon.co.uk