Religion

Abstract

The fifth of November, commonly referred to today as ‘Firework’ or ‘Bonfire Night’, is the closest thing the English have to a national day.¹ Since Parliament’s passing of the Anniversary Days Observance Act in 1859, the celebration has been a secular one with no official links to any church or religious group. This was certainly not how the festivity began in the early seventeenth century when it was known as ‘Gunpowder Treason Day’. The name commemorates an unsuccessful attempt on 5 November 1605 by Guy Fawkes and other Catholic conspirators to blow up the King and Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Parliament legislated the plot’s failure into the national memory in 1606 by passing an Act to make 5 November a day of public thanksgiving for God’s favouring of the English and their Protestantism. The thanksgiving day was officially part of the Church of England calendar. Until well into the nineteenth century, Protestant patriotism and anti-Catholic sentiments were at the heart of this national day of celebration. Its endurance in the nineteenth century reveals the tenacious link between Protestantism and national identity in England and in Britain.