Guy Fawkes, also known as Guido Fawkes while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He was born and educated in York; his father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic.
George Cruikshank's illustration of Guy Fawkes, published in William Harrison Ainsworth's 1840 novel Guy Fawkes
Fawkes was baptised on 16 April 1570 at the church of St Michael le Belfrey, York, next to York Minster (seen at left).
A contemporary engraving of eight of the thirteen conspirators, by Crispijn van de Passe. Fawkes is third from the right.
Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot (c. 1823), by Henry Perronet Briggs
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James I by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious persecution.
A late 17th- or early 18th-century report of the plot
Elizabeth I, queen from 1558 to 1603
King James's daughter Elizabeth, whom the conspirators planned to install on the throne as a Catholic queen. Portrait by Robert Peake the Elder, National Maritime Museum.
A contemporary engraving of eight of the thirteen conspirators, by Crispijn van de Passe. Missing are Digby, Keyes, Rookwood, Grant, and Tresham.
