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I can't believe that that weird monkey paw granted my wish to destroy the Tory Party.... oh wait, oh no.... Why do I keep trusting the monkey paw?
I've been enjoying the
Journey Through History podcast with inept Faithful but good historian David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell. There are some good eps on Dickens and A Christmas Carol (I am catching up on old eps) Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch and this week I've been listening to them talking about the Gunpowder Plot.
Fans of RHLSTP will know that my favourite part of the plot was that Guy Fawkes used the unimaginative pseudonym of John Johnson (and it turns out that wasn't a spur of the moment Ian Gunpowder decision - he actually chose that in advance) and I love his victory in death where he threw himself off the gallows and died, thus avoiding the very unpleasant list of treats that his executioners had for him. We've probably all seen the pictures of his signature before and after execution.
Even with this depth of knowledge the podcast told me lots of stuff I didn't know. I hadn't appreciated how poorly thought out the plot and the aftermath was. It came pretty close to success and obviously wiping out most of the politicians, royals, bishops and judges would have had quite an effect on British History - another consequence is that no one reading this would ever have existed (though a lot of people who never got to exist would have existed instead and some of them might have been better than the crappy lot we ended up with). Something I hadn't considered was that the explosion would have been so big that it would have taken out most of the area around parliament, but also caused a fireball that might have brought the Great Fire of London forward a few decades. It's doubtful that many people would have been so delighted by this death and destruction that they would have joined the conspirators cause and Catholic persecution (which was already not exactly a cakewalk) would have surely been much worse.
Change any one little thing in history and the domino effect will eventually change everything. Have you seen the film Slidiing Doors? It gets it all wrong and is rubbish. A huge thing like this that would change history, geography and biology pretty much instantaneously and effect everything around the world. Imagine how different our lives would have been if 9/11 had been stopped on 9/10. The biggest mistake made by time travel fiction is that if you go back and change something 100 years ago that the same people would have been magicked into existence by the wonder of sperm meets egg and still be around. Your existence is precarious and impossible. If your mum had missed a train because of a Sliding Door on the day of your conception, then even if your parents had got it together ten minutes later, the same gamete wouldn't have made it and someone else would have got a go at living.
I bet most of us have an ancestor who was in parliament on 11/5 so if they'd gone up in smoke there is literally no chance you'd be here.
So whilst Guy Fawkes is my hero (I bet he'd have supported York City too) I am glad he failed so that I got to exist and make him my hero and do funny jokes about his poor pseudonym skills.
