(Wikipedia)
... to poetry ...
The Fifth of November
The Fifth of November
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England's overthrow.
But, by God's providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James's sake!
If you won't give me one,
I'll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
English Folk Verse (c.1870) from Poem of the Week.
... to North American history ...
In 1775, when the Continental Army was trying to form an alliance with Catholic French Canadians to help throw out the British, George Washington found out how his troops were planning to celebrate "Pope Night". You can hear his exasperation in the orders that ensue:
Image source: Washington portrait from the collections of The Bostonian Society/Old State Museum.)
... to cartoons ...
It wasn't going well. And then I read this, from Mary Poppins' author P. L. Travers, writing in 1943 about the ban on Guy Fawkes Day celebrations because of the blackout.
"Since 1939, however, there have been no bonfires on the village greens. No fireworks gleam in the blackened parks and the streets are dark and silent. But this darkness will not last forever. There will some day come a Fifth of November — or another date, it doesn't matter — when fires will burn in a chain of brightness from Land's End to John O' Groats. The children will dance and leap about them as they did in the times before. They will take each other by the hand and watch the rockets breaking, and afterwards they will go home singing to the houses full of light...."
Bonfire Night linked to thoughts of hope and freedom from war - at last, something I could like! And then I realised that I had never, in fact, read a Mary Poppins book. So I got hold of Mary Poppins Opens the Door (Chapter One: The Fifth of November) and I read it. And now I have a new pet hate. That woman! The way she mistreats those children - introducing them to wonders and then trying to make them think they hadn't seen what they'd just seen - psychological damage much? But that's a dislike for another day.
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England's overthrow.
But, by God's providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James's sake!
If you won't give me one,
I'll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
English Folk Verse (c.1870) from Poem of the Week.
... to North American history ...
In 1775, when the Continental Army was trying to form an alliance with Catholic French Canadians to help throw out the British, George Washington found out how his troops were planning to celebrate "Pope Night". You can hear his exasperation in the orders that ensue:
“As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope—He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America:
“At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.”
(Quotation source: General orders for 5 Nov 1775, George Washington Papers, American Memory Project of the Library of Congress.
Image source: Washington portrait from the collections of The Bostonian Society/Old State Museum.)
... to cartoons ...
Punch magazine, November 1850
a commentary on the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England
(Wikipedia)
It wasn't going well. And then I read this, from Mary Poppins' author P. L. Travers, writing in 1943 about the ban on Guy Fawkes Day celebrations because of the blackout.
"Since 1939, however, there have been no bonfires on the village greens. No fireworks gleam in the blackened parks and the streets are dark and silent. But this darkness will not last forever. There will some day come a Fifth of November — or another date, it doesn't matter — when fires will burn in a chain of brightness from Land's End to John O' Groats. The children will dance and leap about them as they did in the times before. They will take each other by the hand and watch the rockets breaking, and afterwards they will go home singing to the houses full of light...."
Bonfire Night linked to thoughts of hope and freedom from war - at last, something I could like! And then I realised that I had never, in fact, read a Mary Poppins book. So I got hold of Mary Poppins Opens the Door (Chapter One: The Fifth of November) and I read it. And now I have a new pet hate. That woman! The way she mistreats those children - introducing them to wonders and then trying to make them think they hadn't seen what they'd just seen - psychological damage much? But that's a dislike for another day.
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