49 Fun Facts About Bonfire Night

In the Harry Potter books, which wizard owns Fawkes, a phoenix that shares the Gunpowder Plotter's name?

Albus Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes gave the tail feathers inside both Harry's and Voldemort's wands, which is why the two wands will not fight each other properly.

Which royal bodyguard, founded by Henry VII, still searches the cellars beneath Parliament before every State Opening?

The Yeomen of the Guard have searched the cellars before every State Opening since the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a hunt for a latter-day Fawkes that is now largely ceremonial.

Until what time does the law in England and Wales allow fireworks on Bonfire Night, later than on an ordinary night?

Midnight is the Bonfire Night exception; New Year's Eve, Diwali and Chinese New Year get 1am, and on ordinary nights fireworks must stop at 11pm.

Which Oxford museum, Britain's first public museum, holds the lantern Guy Fawkes carried the night he was caught?

The Ashmolean's lantern, said to be the one Fawkes was carrying, was given to Oxford University in 1641 by Robert Heywood, whose brother Peter joined the search of the cellars and is credited with taking it from him.

Which Game of Thrones actor played his own ancestor, plot ringleader Robert Catesby, in the BBC drama Gunpowder?

Kit Harington was christened Christopher Catesby Harington, and he developed and produced the 2017 series as well as starring in it.

Which hacktivist collective, known for its 2008 Scientology protests, adopted the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta?

Anonymous wore the mask at its Project Chanology pickets of the Church of Scientology, and it spread to the Occupy movement, so the design is now often simply called the Anonymous mask.

What cry did British children use when begging money from strangers with a homemade effigy ahead of 5 November?

'Penny for the guy' dates from the late 18th century, when children first began begging with effigies of Fawkes, and the custom has now almost completely disappeared from British streets.

Northern Ireland's loyalist bonfires are lit on the eve of which date, marking William of Orange's defeat of James II?

12 July, the Twelfth, is the big Ulster Protestant day, so the Eleventh Night bonfires the evening before are Northern Ireland's own bonfire night, nothing to do with Guy Fawkes.

From which Middle English phrase, used of fires lit on Saint John's Eve, does the word 'bonfire' come?

A 'bone fire' was literally a fire of clean bones and no wood, and the great 1755 Dictionary of the English Language got it wrong by deriving 'bon' from the French for good.

Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, how did Guy Fawkes escape the worst of his execution?

His neck broke on the scaffold as he was hanged, and by some accounts he jumped to make sure of it, so he was already dead when the executioners quartered his body.

In which northern English city, home of St Peter's School, was Guy Fawkes born to a Protestant family?

York's St Peter's School also taught John and Christopher Wright, two brothers who went on to join Fawkes in the plot, and Fawkes himself was baptised in the Church of England before converting to Catholicism.

Under what alias, posing as a servant of conspirator Thomas Percy, was Guy Fawkes arrested beneath the House of Lords?

John Johnson was the name Fawkes gave his interrogators too, and James I's torture warrant of 6 November ordered that 'John Johnson' be made to reveal his co-conspirators.

Guy Fawkes took the name Guido while serving in the army of which Catholic power?

Spain's army in Flanders took Fawkes on as a soldier of fortune, and in 1603 he travelled to Philip III's court to seek help for England's Catholics.

Which Catholic peer's unsigned warning letter, telling him to skip Parliament's opening, exposed the Gunpowder Plot?

Lord Monteagle took the letter straight to Whitehall and was rewarded with £500 plus £200 worth of lands for his part in exposing the plot.

Which nine-year-old child of James I did the plotters plan to seize from Coombe Abbey and crown as a Catholic puppet?

Elizabeth grew up to be the 'Winter Queen' of Bohemia, and when the Stuart line ran out in 1714 the British crown passed to her grandson George I, founding the House of Hanover.

Why was the State Opening of Parliament that the plotters targeted pushed back from February to November 1605?

An outbreak of plague twice delayed Parliament, which gave the plotters time to find their gunpowder had decayed and to bring in a fresh supply.

How did Guy Fawkes plan to get away after lighting the fuse, before sailing for the continent?

By boat across the Thames was the plan, while the other conspirators raised a revolt in the Midlands, and the gunpowder had itself been rowed over from a house in Lambeth each night.

Where was Guy Fawkes tortured after James I ordered 'the gentler tortures' first, under Lieutenant Sir William Waad?

The Tower of London got his confession within days: James's warrant allowed manacles first and the rack if needed, and Fawkes admitted wanting to destroy the House of Lords.

Where were Guy Fawkes and three fellow plotters executed, directly opposite the building they had tried to destroy?

Old Palace Yard at Westminster saw Fawkes dragged in on a wattled hurdle with Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood and Robert Keyes on 31 January 1606, a day after four other plotters died at St Paul's.

Which Secretary of State, by then Earl of Salisbury, was handed the warning letter while James I was away hunting?

Robert Cecil sat on the letter for days, quietly telling two earls with Catholic sympathies but keeping the King in the dark until he returned from the hunt on 1 November.

Which phrase in the warning letter did James I seize on as a hint at 'fire and powder' against Parliament?

'A terrible blow this Parliament' was the letter's warning, and James, whose father Lord Darnley died the night his lodging at Kirk o' Field was blown up, read 'blow' as gunpowder.

What accident injured several fugitive plotters at Holbeche House before the sheriff's men arrived?

Their damp gunpowder caught fire when the fugitives laid it before the hearth to dry, scorching Catesby himself a few hours before the sheriff's men stormed the house.

What was done to the bodies of Robert Catesby and Thomas Percy, who had died fighting rather than face trial?

Exhumed and beheaded after burial, the two ringleaders had their heads set on spikes outside the House of Lords, the building they had meant to destroy.

What cover story let plotter Sir Everard Digby gather armed horsemen in the Midlands for the planned uprising?

A hunting party on Dunsmore Heath was Digby's pretext, so that his riders stood ready to start a Midlands rising once Parliament fell; instead he was executed within three months.

Henry Garnet, executed in 1606 for concealing the Gunpowder Plot, led which Catholic order's mission in England?

The Jesuits' English superior had learned of the plot under the seal of confession, and his jailers eavesdropped on his cell talk and intercepted his letters to build the case.

Asked why he had so much gunpowder, Guy Fawkes said he meant to blow which of the King's courtiers back home?

The Scots had followed James I south from Edinburgh, and Fawkes told the lords questioning him that he meant to blow them back to their native mountains.

Which conspirator, long suspected of writing the warning letter to his brother-in-law, died in custody before the trial?

Francis Tresham died of illness in December 1605, and his deathbed confession never mentioned the letter, an odd omission if he really was its author.

Beneath what were the barrels of gunpowder hidden in the undercroft that Guy Fawkes guarded?

Firewood and coal covered the barrels, so the first search party saw only a big fuel store and left; the King ordered a second search that night, which caught Fawkes.

Which word completes the traditional rhyme 'Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder ___ and plot'?

Treason completes the line, which opened the songs sung door to door to collect fuel and money for the fire, on a date long known as Gunpowder Treason Day.

In which Canadian province does Bonfire Night still survive every 5 November?

Newfoundland stayed a separate British dominion until 1949, and the 5 November bonfires its settlers brought over have outlived the custom in the rest of Canada.

What was Guy Fawkes Night called in colonial Boston, where rival gangs brawled for the right to burn the effigy?

Pope Night was banned for his troops by George Washington in 1775, who did not want to offend the Canadian and French Catholic allies he was courting.

In which Devon town do residents mark 5 November by running through the streets carrying flaming tar barrels?

Ottery St Mary is thought to have run its flaming barrels since the 17th century, and the same town families have carried them for generations, passing a barrel between relatives like an heirloom.

Which Sussex town parades burning crosses on 5 November in memory of 17 Protestant martyrs burned there under Mary I?

Lewes remembers 17 Protestants burned at the stake there in the 1550s, and two of its bonfire societies also parade the heads of their 'Enemies of Bonfire' in effigy on pikes.

Which Beatle ended his 1970 song 'Remember' with 'the fifth of November' and an explosion?

John Lennon wrote it out of his primal therapy with Arthur Janov, then cut the eight-minute take short and dubbed on the blast from an EMI sound-effects tape.

Which Shakespeare tragedy has a drunken porter welcome an 'equivocator' to hell, a jibe at the Gunpowder Plot trials?

Macbeth is usually dated to 1606, and the porter's equivocator who 'could not equivocate to heaven' is widely read as a dig at a priest who defended misleading answers at his trial that year.

Which sticky oatmeal gingerbread, baked hard then left to soften for days, is northern England's Bonfire Night cake?

Parkin's first dated mention is a 1728 court record from the West Riding, where Anne Whittaker was accused of stealing oatmeal to make it.

Bonfire toffee, known in Scotland as claggum, tastes overwhelmingly of which sweetener, bitter in cheap versions?

Black treacle, or molasses, was once considered medicinal and priced accordingly, which kept toffee a luxury long after treacle arrived in Britain in the 1660s.

Which saint, condemned in legend to die on a spiked wheel, gives a spinning firework its name?

Saint Catherine of Alexandria's wheel, the legend runs, shattered at her touch before it could harm her, and the Catherine wheel firework keeps the name.

Which ingredient makes up about three-quarters of classic gunpowder by weight, alongside charcoal and sulfur?

Saltpetre, or potassium nitrate, supplies the oxygen as it breaks down, which is why gunpowder burns with no air and smothering a lit firework will not put it out.

Which actor, never seen without the mask, took over as V in the film V for Vendetta six weeks into shooting?

Hugo Weaving replaced James Purefoy, who left uncredited, and redubbed the scenes Purefoy had already shot, having worked with the Wachowskis on The Matrix films.

Which writer created V for Vendetta in comics but refused a screen credit or royalties and never watched the result?

Alan Moore had hated the film versions of From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and his name is absent from the closing credits at his own request.

Which actress plays Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta, having her head shaved on camera for the torture scene?

Natalie Portman's shaved head was real, and in 2006 she gave a guest lecture on the film for a Columbia University course on terrorism and counterterrorism.

During the 2011 Occupy protests, sales of the Guy Fawkes mask made money for which film studio?

Warner Bros. made the 2006 film and its parent Time Warner owned the rights to the mask, so anti-corporate protesters buying official copies were paying a media giant.

What is the fascist party ruling Britain in the V for Vendetta film, led by Adam Sutler?

Norsefire's leader, Adam Susan in the comic, is played in the film by John Hurt, who had been Big Brother's victim Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Which orchestral piece's finale is played at the key moments that open and close the V for Vendetta film?

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was written to mark Russia's defeat of Napoleon and scores its finale with real cannon fire, which V times to his explosions.

Which London landmark does V blow up at the start of the film V for Vendetta, a year before Parliament?

The Old Bailey, London's central criminal court, is V's first target; he then takes over the state broadcaster to give the country a year's notice that Parliament is next.

V for Vendetta began in a British comic that folded in 1985; which American publisher finished the story in colour?

DC Comics picked up the strip after Warrior magazine collapsed, colouring the black-and-white chapters and letting its creators finish it as a ten-issue series in 1988–89.

Which Somerset town opens the county's Guy Fawkes carnival circuit with a parade that ends in mass 'squibbing'?

Bridgwater's carnival has roots going back to 1605, and squibbing sees a hundred 'squibbers' hold fireworks aloft on long wooden handles called coshes along the High Street.

What do northern English children call 4 November, the eve of Guy Fawkes Day?

Mischief Night is the north's evening for pranks, which go back to May Eve revels and only later moved across the calendar to the night before the bonfires.