Reformation

Henry VIII, king of England from 1509 to 1547, ought to be held responsible for the “guy” and “guys” we say nowadays. Guy Fawkes’s terrorist attack in 1605 would not even have been imaginable in the peaceable religious climate of England before 1533. Until then, Henry had been an informed, devout Catholic. But in the 1530s, wanting a male heir that his first wife Catherine couldn’t provide, he asked the pope for an annulment of that marriage so he could marry Anne Boleyn and have a legitimate male heir with her. When the pope wouldn’t oblige, Henry disavowed allegiance to the pope and declared himself supreme head of the church in England. Until then, everyone in England had been Catholic; now officially nobody could. That caused bitter conflicts. After Henry’s death in 1547 the church became strongly Protestant under King Edward VI, then strongly Catholic under Mary, and more moderate, though still staunchly anti-papal, under Elizabeth. For good measure, the English church was under attack on the other flank by the extreme Protestant Puritans. None of the Protestant versions satisfied Catholics, who tried plot after plot to unseat the queen and restore Catholicism. That was the explosive fuel that ignited the Gunpowder Treason Plot of 1605.