Bonfire Night Trivia
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49 free Bonfire Night trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every 5 November Britain burns an effigy of a man who never lit his fuse. Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars beneath the House of Lords hours before the State Opening of Parliament in 1605, and the failure of the Gunpowder Plot has been celebrated with bonfires ever since, first by law and now by habit, with fireworks, toffee and a rhyme everyone half-remembers. These 49 questions cover the plot itself — Robert Catesby and the conspirators, the warning letter, the arrest, the torture and the trial — along with the traditions that grew up around the night: the effigies, the foods, the fireworks and the towns that still do it biggest, from Sussex to Devon. There is also a round on V for Vendetta and the mask that turned a Jacobean conspirator into a modern protest symbol, plus the science of why fireworks burn in colour. Play it solo, use it as a pub quiz round for the first week of November, or print it for the classroom.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the Harry Potter books, which wizard owns Fawkes, a phoenix that shares the Gunpowder Plotter's name?
Albus Dumbledore
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.
Q 02Which royal bodyguard, founded by Henry VII, still searches the cellars beneath Parliament before every State Opening?
Yeomen of the Guard
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.
Q 03Until what time does the law in England and Wales allow fireworks on Bonfire Night, later than on an ordinary night?
Midnight
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.
Q 04Which Oxford museum, Britain's first public museum, holds the lantern Guy Fawkes carried the night he was caught?
Ashmolean
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.
Q 05Which Game of Thrones actor played his own ancestor, plot ringleader Robert Catesby, in the BBC drama Gunpowder?
Kit Harington
Kit Harington was christened Christopher Catesby Harington, and he developed and produced the 2017 series as well as starring in it.
Q 06Which hacktivist collective, known for its 2008 Scientology protests, adopted the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta?
Anonymous
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.
Q 07What cry did British children use when begging money from strangers with a homemade effigy ahead of 5 November?
Penny for the guy
'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.
Q 08Northern Ireland's loyalist bonfires are lit on the eve of which date, marking William of Orange's defeat of James II?
12 July
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.
Q 09From which Middle English phrase, used of fires lit on Saint John's Eve, does the word 'bonfire' come?
bone fire
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.
Q 10Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, how did Guy Fawkes escape the worst of his execution?
His neck broke on the scaffold
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.
Q 11In which northern English city, home of St Peter's School, was Guy Fawkes born to a Protestant family?
York
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.
Q 12Under what alias, posing as a servant of conspirator Thomas Percy, was Guy Fawkes arrested beneath the House of Lords?
John Johnson
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.
Q 13Guy Fawkes took the name Guido while serving in the army of which Catholic power?
Spain
Q 21Which phrase in the warning letter did James I seize on as a hint at 'fire and powder' against Parliament?
A terrible blow
'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.
Q 22What accident injured several fugitive plotters at Holbeche House before the sheriff's men arrived?
Their damp gunpowder caught fire
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.
Q 23What was done to the bodies of Robert Catesby and Thomas Percy, who had died fighting rather than face trial?
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.
Q 14Which Catholic peer's unsigned warning letter, telling him to skip Parliament's opening, exposed the Gunpowder Plot?
Lord Monteagle
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.
Q 15Which nine-year-old child of James I did the plotters plan to seize from Coombe Abbey and crown as a Catholic puppet?
Elizabeth
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.
Q 16Why was the State Opening of Parliament that the plotters targeted pushed back from February to November 1605?
An outbreak of plague
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.
Q 17How did Guy Fawkes plan to get away after lighting the fuse, before sailing for the continent?
By boat across the Thames
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.
Q 18Where was Guy Fawkes tortured after James I ordered 'the gentler tortures' first, under Lieutenant Sir William Waad?
Tower of London
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.
Q 19Where were Guy Fawkes and three fellow plotters executed, directly opposite the building they had tried to destroy?
Old Palace Yard
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.
Q 20Which Secretary of State, by then Earl of Salisbury, was handed the warning letter while James I was away hunting?
Robert Cecil
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.
Exhumed and beheaded
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.
Q 24What cover story let plotter Sir Everard Digby gather armed horsemen in the Midlands for the planned uprising?
A hunting party
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.
Q 25Henry Garnet, executed in 1606 for concealing the Gunpowder Plot, led which Catholic order's mission in England?
The Jesuits
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.
Q 26Asked why he had so much gunpowder, Guy Fawkes said he meant to blow which of the King's courtiers back home?
The Scots
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.
Q 27Which conspirator, long suspected of writing the warning letter to his brother-in-law, died in custody before the trial?
Francis Tresham
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.
Q 28Beneath what were the barrels of gunpowder hidden in the undercroft that Guy Fawkes guarded?
Firewood and coal
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.
Q 29Which word completes the traditional rhyme 'Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder ___ and plot'?
treason
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.
Q 30In which Canadian province does Bonfire Night still survive every 5 November?
Newfoundland
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.