The Written Word
for November 5, 2000

Today is Guy Fawkes Day … the day in 1603 that in a plot that wasn’t even led by Guy, or Guido, Fawkes the Catholic forces tried to blow up parliament. Guy Fawkes lives today as I will demonstrate in a moment.

It all started with King Henry’s divorce and the concurrent Protestant revolution started by Martin Luther. When Henry did his own divorcing, getting himself excommunicated by the Pope in the bargain, he took upon himself the title Head of the Church in England which title has passed down to the current Queen. (Ironically, the Pope had previously been so pleased with Henry that he designated him "Defender of the Faith, a title retained to this day by the British Monarch.) Henry’s heir, Edward VI, though a boy, carried on the schism and continued persecution of the Catholics. When Mary I took over after the untimely death of her half brother, she married Philip of Spain and brought England back into the Romish fold and suddenly it was Protestant bishops being burned at the stake. When she died, Elizabeth I, who had wobbled between Protestantism and Catholicism according to the political winds, re-established the Church of England, though her intolerance of Catholics was much muted.

Upon Elizabeth’s death the crown passed to the Catholic James VI of Scotland who, upon becoming James I of England, promised to uphold the national church. That promise was put in great jeopardy by his grandson, James II who was a self professed Roman Catholic with the result that when, after James was toppled in a bloodless coup, William and Mary (James II’s daughter) came to the throne Parliament passed the Succession Act making it obligatory that the monarch be a Protestant as Head of the Church of England.

For many years Catholics were legally discriminated against and although that has passed into the mists of time it is still impossible for a Catholic to be King or Queen of England. Now comes Charles and though he has no intentions of accepting Catholicism, nor it him, he doesn’t want to be the head of the Church of England when – and if – he becomes King.

It looks as if Tony Blair is agreeable and thus, perhaps, will the ghost of old Guido Fawkes finally have some rest.