Guy Fawkes was sentenced to death for his role in the Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy to kill James I of England, members of the royal family and government officials. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsAs Guy Fawkes walked to the gallows on January 31, 1606, doomed to execution for his part in an unsuccessful attempt to blow up Londons Houses of Parliament, no one knew just what was going through his mind.A co-conspirator in the infamous Gunpowder Plot, Fawkes was born in 1570 in York, England. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in his teens. When Fawkes was just 21, he left for mainland Europe to fight for the Spanish in the Eighty Years War, a conflict that began before his birth, when Catholic Spain reacted to the Protestant Reformation making its way through the Netherlands.While in Spain, Fawkes met Thomas Wintour and Robert Catesby, the leaders of a small group of men who detested Englands new king, James I, for his discrimination toward Catholics. Together, the men planned on blowing up Britains Houses of Parliament, killing the king, his wife and his eldest son. The conspirators then planned to kidnap and crown James young daughter, 9-year-old Elizabeth, providing English Catholics an opportunity to reclaim their country. Wintour recruited Fawkes to join them.The assassination was set to take place during the formal State Opening of Englands Parliament on November 5, 1605, an event laden with political significance that would be attended by most of the nations influential leaders. Since Fawkes was familiar with gunpowder from his time in the military, it fell to him to light the explosives beneath the Palace of Westminster, where Parliament convenes. An engraving of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, with Fawkes depicted third from right Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsLuckily for James and others targeted by the plot, an anonymous letter exposing the conspiracy made its way to a member of Parliament, Lord Monteagle. My lord, out of the love I have for some of your friends, I want to make sure you are safe, the missive read. Because of this, I would advise you to not attend this sitting of Parliament, because God and man have agreed to punish the wickedness of this time. Instead of keeping the warning to himself, Monteagle shared it with the authorities, precipitating an immediate response. Fawkes was arrested in the cellars beneath the palace in the morning hours of November 5. He had 36 barrels of gunpowder beside him.When asked what he was doing, Fawkes admitted to wanting to blow up the king, venting his regret at having failed. His captors imprisoned him at the Tower of London, where he was interrogated and tortured. Though some of his co-conspirators had fled to Englands Midlands, they were chased down and killed. The othersincluding Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood and Robert Keyeswere caught and interned alongside Fawkes at the Tower. All of the surviving men were later convicted of high treason.The court sentenced the plotters to hanging, drawing and quartering, a brutal process that involved hanging the men until they were half-dead, cutting them down and disemboweling them, and finally beheading them and dividing their remains into quarters. As Attorney General Edward Coke said during the mens trials, the accused would be put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both.The Real Story of Guido Fawkes | The Gunpowder Plot of 1605Watch on The executions were scheduled for the last two days of January 1606. But Fawkes, who was the final conspirator to make his way to the noose, escaped the full horrors of his sentence. According to a contemporary chronicler, His body being weak with the torture and sickness, he was scarce able to go up the ladder, yet with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to break his neck by the fall. In other words, by either jumping or falling to the ground from the gallows, Fawkes ensured he was dead before being cut down and disemboweled.Though Fawkes is synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, he was by no means the principal conspirator. Still, his legacy lives on. In Britain, November 5 is known as Guy Fawkes Night, a commemoration of the failed plot that involves plenty of bonfires and fireworks, as well as effigies of Fawkes himself that are typically tossed into the fire. Theres also the Guy Fawkes mask, a stylized depiction of Fawkes that illustrator David Lloyd created for the 1980s graphic novel V for Vendetta. In the years since, the mask has been adopted as a symbol of anarchy and protest worldwide.The religious strife that sparked the Gunpowder Plot has long since been resolved in England. But its legacy endures alongside Fawkes rebellious reputation: Each year before the Houses of Parliaments official State Opening, the royal bodyguards perform a ceremonial search of its cellars in recognition of the failed Gunpowder Plot.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: British History, Christianity, Death, England, European History, London, On This Day in History