The Gunpowder Plot - by Antonia Fraser

This book was, I admit, a bit of a struggle. Maybe just too serious for bedtime reading - not badly written, just detailed and heavy going. But I got through it and learned quite a lot.

My preconceptions are probably the same as anyone who has grown up with the standard Guy Fawkes mythology. I thought that Guy was the ring leader of a small band of terrorists, who burrowed under the Houses of Parliament in order to blow up the government. I had no real idea what their motivations were. I was wrong on numerous counts:

• Guy Fawkes's first name - regardless of our "Penny for the Guy" habit - was Guido.
• He was not the ring leader - that was Robert ["Robin"] Catesby - Fawkes was just one of the team, who happened to be caught.
• They didn't dig underground. The explosives were simply in a ground floor room under the chamber.
• They were planning on killing most of the royal family, not just the government.

Although there are some other theories, it seems that the plotters were Catholic fundamentalists, who wanted to overcome the government to ease their oppression. 400 years later and only the names have changed ...

It seems likely that the plot would actually have failed, as reports indicated that the gunpowder had "decayed" [as it will do if not stored correctly], but that may have been propaganda.

I was taken with a phrase used to indicate that something was unlikely to happen: "We shall see Tottenham turn French".

Tomorrow I will listen to the Bookclub programme and maybe pick up some more insights. But now on to some lighter reading ...