The gunpowder plot of 1605 was an attempt to assassinate King James I, blow up London’s Houses of Parliament and trigger a full-scale Catholic rebellion in England. To commemorate its spectacular failure, parliament passed the Act for a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God Every Year on the Fifth Day of November. But few needed an excuse for celebrations as winter closed in.
In Jacobean England, November 5 added just another red-letter day to a calendar already enlivened by the bonfires lit in commemoration of Elizabeth I’s accession on November 17. But the English tradition of bonfires and feasting didn’t begin with Elizabeth either. The ritualised burning of the debris of the year can be dated back to pre-Christian times. The act of 1605 both sanctioned and positively encouraged such activities.
