What if guy fawkes succeeded

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I was just being told about this bizarre movie about how we're living the best possible history. And like a bunch of really famous people in history, I think Hitler being one of them, were actually just people who were from the future who kept traveling back and quirking with things to improve the overall whole historical timeline- the movie played with the idea that death and wars and tragedies are imminent but that there are so many possible histories that are way worse than the one we are living.

Oh, and all of these future people lived together on the dark side of the moon. November 5th was always so much more than Guy Fawkes blowing up Parliame If the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded in , Princess Elizabeth would have be So how might it have played out?

Let's go on down the other trouser leg of time and find out. What was the Gunpowder Plot? Before we can change history, it's as well to establish what actually happened.

Westminster Palace burnt down in But who was the real Guy Fawkes? What if Guy Fawkes had Lit the Fuse? Here we go, back in time and off into a parallel universe. Sir Thomas Knevett has not wandered into the undercroft. Guy Fawkes was never stopped.

Their descent would prove fatal for anyone underneath. Books about the Great Fire of London London had had many fires in the past, but nothing like what happened in September It was the biggest urban disaster in Europe since the Huns attacked Rome.

The Immediate Response to the Explosion of Parliament It doesn't matter what the historical age or society, when an emergency this big occurs, all needs to be made safe. Books about Jacobean London Learn more about the society and city at stake here. A successful Gunpowder Plot would have ended it all immediately. It's fairly easy to piece together what would likely have happened next, though, of course, no-one can say for certain.

Lord Salisbury would have been dead. November 5th was always so much more than Guy Fawkes blowing up Parliament. Assuming that he had lit the fuse, would there have been a Catholic Uprising? Books about the Causes of Mob Rule and Riots This could well have been the immediate situation in a panicked and disordered England, after the blowing up of Parliament.

They would just have to find another building to do it in. Image: Prince Charles Stuart aged four. This situation was awkward, but not unprecedented. Books about the Life of Charles I Despite being so ill as a baby, and the youngest son, Charles did actually become king. He famously started the English Civil War and was executed.

What happens next depends upon who acts fast enough. There is something so wonderfully bad-ass about the Jacobean noblewoman Dame Robert Carey.

Particularly how often she put King James in his place! If the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded in , Princess Elizabeth would have been abducted and made queen. She was only nine years old. Guy Fawkes was successful in blowing up Parliament House. Four year old King Charles is monarch. Only logged-in users are allowed to comment. Losses and Gains after the Successful Gunpowder Plot Time for some educated guesses about how history would have been changed, if Parliament House had been exploded by Guy Fawkes.

Charles would have been raised in a fiercely anti-Catholic household, whoever took him; plus he'd blame that faith for the loss of his family. He wouldn't have the pro-Catholic tolerance which caused him trouble with the Puritans. His hatred of Catholicism would have been passed onto his own children, which renders it unlikely that James II would have converted.

Neither would Charles have been taught about the divine right of kings by his father. Both of these would ensure that the English Civil War never happened, and that Charles would never be executed accordingly. The King James Bible would not have been written.

It had been commissioned in , so it was in the pipeline. But Archbishop Bancroft, who was writing it, was in Parliament House that day. As a result, there would have been none of the religious problems with the Church in Scotland. America and Newfoundland would never have been colonized by the English. Not only would the nation not have the money and time to fund it, but both Francis Bacon and Sir Edwin Sandys were in Parliament House that day. Instead the French would have expanded down from Canada.

All of Francis Bacon's scientific, philosophic and legal work, after , would never have happened. Regardless of whether Ireland took advantage of the turmoil to gain independence or not, the Ulster Plantations would not have taken place.

James financed them through loans from the City of London Guilds. They would not have the money to spare, what with the rebuilding of their own city and all. As a result, Northern Ireland would probably not now be separate from Eire. It's possible that the Flight of the Earls wouldn't have happened, as O'Neil and the other Gaelic chiefs could do much better staying in Ulster and rebelling in these circumstances.

Nor would Oliver Cromwell have been able to brutally control Ireland a few years on. He'd remain a rather insignificant land owner. There would be no Union Flag, as that wasn't commissioned until , and it was only James who ever wanted it. In fact, I'd speculate that England and Scotland would be embroiled in an almighty political struggle over Charles, which may have ended in war. Shakespeare would never have written MacBeth , as that was to impress King James. Books about the Jacobean and Stuart Eras Discover more about the real history, as it happened, by reading these books.

View on Amazon Stuart England: Second Edition Hist of England, Penguin Stuart England is the subject of continual and active research, and Professor Kenyon's survey presents a unified picture of this contentious century, as well as featuring a full View on Amazon Making Ireland British, This is the first comprehensive study of plantations in Ireland during the years Comments Only logged-in users are allowed to comment.

It was her mind and correspondence which led Descartes into his most famous philosophy. Disclosure: This page generates income for authors based on affiliate relationships with our partners, including Amazon, Google and others.

Stuart England: Second Edition Hist of England, Penguin Stuart England is the subject of continual and active research, and Professor Kenyon's survey presents a unified picture of this contentious century, as well as featuring a full Making Ireland British, This is the first comprehensive study of plantations in Ireland during the years Thomas Percy was deputed to kidnap him from his household in London.

With the Prince of Wales dead and both Charles and Elizabeth in the hands of the rebels, loyalists to the monarchy would have had no figurehead around whom to rally. Faced with the demand to proclaim Elizabeth as queen, many towns would probably have played for time until their corporations could establish which side was likely to win, just as they had done in during the attempted Protestant coup to put Lady Jane Grey on the English throne.

What next? A religious civil war, like those which had crippled France during the later 16th century? The break-up of the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, barely two years old and wholly dependent on the person of James VI and I?

All of this is speculation; but sometimes taking a counterfactual perspective can reveal the deep forces underlying the accidents of history.

Dr John Cooper is a senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of York, and was a historical advisor to the BBC drama series Gunpowder.

Sign in. Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses. Home Period Stuart Alternate history: what if… the gunpowder plot had succeeded? The gunpowder plotters of What might have happened had the conspiracy been successful? They would have been in no physical or emotional position to support the rebels, and they would have been surrounded by Protestants who were hearing of the atrocity in the capital and the uprising, aware that Catholics were responsible for both, and left under the command of their surviving local leaders.

Almost certainly these would have taken up arms in a panic, turned upon the Catholics in their respective areas, and imprisoned or slaughtered them, in an English equivalent to the wave of hate and fear that had driven the French Catholics to massacre the Protestants there on St Bartholomew's Day in Protestant militia and vigilantes would have converged on the rebels in the Midlands and overwhelmed them.

It is unlikely that the conspirators would have murdered the royal children when surrounded. Their actual conduct when brought to bay was that of a high-minded resignation to martyrdom. The Catholic powers of Europe would have protested at the slaughter inflicted upon their co-religionists, but the murder of the king, queen and peerage would have done much to excuse it in the eyes of foreign states.

The implications of this outcome for future British history would have been tremendous. Charles I would have become king at the age of four instead of twenty-four. He would never have had the difficult relationship with his parents that left him determined to abandon most of his father's policies, and never have made a friendship with his father's unpopular favourite, Buckingham, so tarnishing the opening of his own reign.

As a godly Protestant prince, with all the serious and devout nature of the real Charles, he would have been assured of considerable support in Britain. Instead he would have revered the memory of his murdered parents, and almost certainly have acquired an abiding hatred of Catholicism, and tended instead to the evangelical wing of Anglicanism.

This would have made him much more popular in both England and Scotland than the Anglo-Catholic policies that he adopted instead. His sister would almost certainly have married a Protestant German prince as she actually did , and when he lost his lands to Catholic powers as he also really did , our different, zealously Protestant and anti-Catholic, Charles would have entered the war wholeheartedly on their side. It is true that the financial system was under serious strain already, and would probably have collapsed under the war effort, but the accord between our new Charles and his subjects would have provided a much better basis for an overhaul of it to strengthen the monarchy.

It is true also that the Catholic majority in Ireland, faced with such a hostile king, would have probably been moved to rebellion as they actually were against the Long Parliament in , but the most likely end to that would be that the crushing of the Irish Catholics by Cromwell would have occurred much sooner, and by a secure and popular king.

The Irish problem would have been solved by a programme of mass confiscation and mass evangelization, leaving three Protestant kingdoms under one monarch.

In short, had Guy Fawkes succeeded, the British state would have turned into a Protestant absolute monarchy as Sweden, Denmark, Saxony and Prussia all did in the course of the 17th century; but much stronger than any of those. Geraint Thomas, of the Centre for Explosion Studies at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, said: 'We can use the weight of explosive to work out how it will affect its surroundings.

We know that the more explosive we have, the more energy will be released when the charge is set off. Fawkes and 12 other men conspired to blow up Parliament in an attempt to kill King James I, who was persecuting Catholics. Fawkes was caught red-handed in the cellar with the gunpower - although some have always claimed he was framed.

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