After having read Antonia Fraser's great book on the Gunpowder Plot, I wanted to read a biography of Guy Fawkes. Unfortunately, I waded through several of those cheap and inaccurate (and, therefore, largely ultimately worthless) Kindle biographies of Guy Fawkes, and was left wanting to read a solid work on him. Happily, I came across Nick Holland's book on NetGalley, which I only recently had begun using. This book is exciting, informative, and really gives readers a good feel for who the real Guy Fawkes was.

The cover is superb - I loved it immediately, and I'm so pleased that Pen & Sword didn't go for the "V for Vendetta" mask that I've seen several other books on the Gunpowder Plot use (which I find quite irritating). Holland's Acknowledgement section was noteworthy in that he came across as very humble and nice - something one doesn't always find in an excellent book such as this is.

There are many very interesting facts and educated conjecture based on primary sources which I found very welcome indeed. Sometimes one reads biographies in which the author has only used other historians' works and clearly haven't done any archival research themselves. Holland isn't one of those, and it shows. The Notes section at the end of the book shows he certainly did his own research at places such as the National Archives. 

Among a variety of things, I was very surprised to learn that "Guy Fawkes, the man who played such as central role in a Catholic terror plot, was born and raised into a Protestant family, but...this is just one of the things that many of the gunpowder plotters had in common". The son of Edith and Edward Fawkes, the latter a public notary of the ecclesiastical court, Guy was educated at St. Peter's School - which was attended by two brothers - Christopher and Jack Wright: his future co-conspirators in the gunpowder treason. Holland states that, according to Guy's former schoolmaster John Pulleyn, Guy was "highly intelligent and well-read".

Holland went on to state that "weddings between Catholics were often conducted in secret", and that Fawkes may have once married, and that while the secretive nature of such marriages make it "impossible to prove that it did take place, the absence of an official record is certainly no indication that it didn't." 

Some readers may dislike certain parts of this history. For example, "The handle was turned carefully, with one hand resting upon the hilt of his sword, but once inside, much to Guy's relief, it was apparent he was alone". I know that some other historians dislike this kind of narrative writing, as we can't know exactly this sort of thing. I, however, enjoyed it, especially as the whole biography is a good mix of analytical and narrative which works well.

Although the majority of the book focuses on Guy Fawkes, from his birth to his gruesome end, Holland does take time to describe the other plotters and ably details the timeline of the events, people, and places associated with the gunpowder plot. I thoroughly recommend it.

TSCL rating: 5/5

This is hands down, the best Fawkes book that I've seen. Most of the books that I've seen that relate to this subject only seem to find the portion of his lift that deals with the gunpowder plot to be worth mentioning, but this book delves much father into his life. I liked the way the author approached Guy's story, allowing the reader to feel like they get to know him from his early life forward.

Getting a more complete look at his life and what may have influenced him when he was younger makes it easier to understand how he may have grown into the man he became. This author did a lot of extensive research and has put together a book that explores the human qualities of a legend, making history come alive for the reader.

This would be a great resource for teachers to use when covering Guy Fawkes, or just as an interesting read for anyone who wants to know more about this subject. I was impressed with the quality of this book. It isn't dry or boring, and made me eager to know more.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book it was well written and a joy to read. The authors gives insight to the subject matter that I felt was compelling and would recommend this book to a friend.

THE REAL GUY FAWKES (January 2018)
By Nick Holland
Pen and Sword History, 230 pages
★★★

If you've seen the movie V for Vendetta or an Occupy Wall Street protestor behind a black-and-white mask marked by distinctive eyebrows, goatee, moustache, and impish smile, you might recognize the name Guy Fawkes (1570-1606). You know the meme, but do you know the man? His pop culture props notwithstanding, Guy Fawkes is like Che Guevara, a problematic rebel figure. I finished reading an advance copy of Nick Holland's new biography of Fawkes on November 5, a day in which much of Britain celebrates Fawkes' memory by burning his effigy. On that day in 1605, Fawkes was arrested on the eve of what would have been a monstrous act of terror: he and coconspirators had placed enough gunpowder under the House of Lords to blow it sky high and kill most of the English government. Some observers claim—with perhaps a touch of hyperbole—that such a blast might have leveled all of Parliament. Other plotters planned to kill King James I, if he survived the blast, and to kidnap his daughter, who grew up to become Queen Elizabeth I.

What drove Fawkes to such fury? That is the question Holland seeks to answer. His is a very thorough biography on Fawkes analogous to the sleuthing done by Robert Cecil, the royal administrator whose spy network stopped Fawkes. As a biographer, Holland—also known for a book on Anne Brontë—is firmly in the camp of those who see the times as shaping individuals, not vice versa. Although he spends time discussing Fawkes' childhood and formative experiences, he makes it quite clear that in an earlier age Fawkes would have lived a comfortable life unmarked by controversy.

Indulge me in some history, as it's pretty easy to get lost in these sections of Holland's book if you don't know the terrain. Fawkes lived at a time in which religious faith was a command, not an option. The event known as the Protestant Reformation broke Roman Catholicism's monopoly on Christian orthodoxy. It's often (inaccurately) dated as starting in 1517, but it took centuries before Christians fully embraced ideals of religious freedom. Until then, sanguinary wars of religion took place over a single question: Catholic or Protestant? Fawkes was born into an Anglican (Church of England) South Yorkshire family in 1570, just 36 years after King Henry VIII (reigned 1509-47) declared England a Protestant nation. After a few short reigns, Henry's daughter, Queen Mary I (1553-58) restored Catholicism, but her sister, Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and nephew James I (1603-25) pushed Catholics to the margins and made the Anglican Church supreme again. Political intrigue seldom settles what people believe, however, and Catholicism thrived in low profile, especially in Yorkshire. Queen Elizabeth, however, enacted increasingly harsh laws that targeted Catholic "recusants" that refused to take in Anglican services.

As Holland explains, this was very bad timing for Fawkes, who likely converted to Catholicism after his father died in 1577, possibly the result of his mother's remarriage to a recusant. Fawkes was just 21 when he sold most of his estate to avoid losing it to crippling penalty taxes on recusants. He trudged off to the Continent to fight for Catholic Spain against the Protestant Dutch, an act that bordered on defiance given that England was still technically at war with Spain*. By the time young Guy, now using the affected Italian name Guido, was back in England, his Catholicism had so deepened. that he was inexorably drawn into a circle of plotters and schemers seeking to overthrow Protestant rule.

Although his work focuses on Fawkes, one of Holland's contributions is to deemphasize Fawkes, whose military background made him good with munitions, but whose diminished social status would made him an unlikely master planner. He views Robert Catesby (1572-1605) as the real leader of the Gunpowder Plot, with the powerful Percy family the shadow puppet masters. Catesby, like Thomas Percy, met his demise at the end of a musket rather than the prolonged tortures that befell other conspirators. Holland describes these in gruesome detail—the rack, partial hanging, emasculation, disembowelment, beheading, and more. Ironically, Fawkes fell from the scaffold and broke his neck, hence avoiding a prolonged death.

Holland has certainly done his homework; so much so that a small drawback is that his book sometimes bogs down in a genealogist's welter of detail. In these sections the narrative tone slides into a chronicler's dry voice. In my view, there's too much of this and not enough on the plot itself. I'd rank Holland's as the best biography of Fawkes, but Antonia Fraser's 1996 book remains my favorite on the unfolding drama. Kudos to Holland though for taking some of the sheen off the Gay Fawkes masks. Was Guy Fawkes a martyr for his faith? You could conclude he was no more or less bloody-minded than his contemporaries, but it is just as easy to imagine a successful Fawkes as one of history's greatest mass murderers. Perhaps he's much better as a meme than a memory.

Rob Weir

* England's war with Spain lasted from 1585-1604, though it was pretty much over in 1588, when the mighty Spanish Armada was destroyed in the English Channel by storms and battle.

The Real Guy Fawkes by Nick Holland is a very detailed book and I can say that the author has done extensive historical research on the subject. It's not long as much as other history books and is comparable to a novel for the smoothness of the text - which makes it accessible to most readers. Often what we known about the Gunpowder Plot and its conspirators is limited to some movie or television quotes (V for Vendetta, Gunpowder). Thanks to this volume, the reader is able to gain a deep understanding of the problems that have led to Plot, as well as to the Plot itself. Definitely recommended.

This is officially my favourite time of year.  First, you have Halloween.  Then, it’s Bonfire Night.  As a child, living in a small village, we would have a real community bonfire, with potatoes baking in the embers and a small – but perfectly formed – fireworks display.  I don’t know how many of these type of events exist anymore.  Our local bonfire is a huge affair, run by the local council and so many fireworks it makes your head spin.  There is no more baking potatoes – or kids wandering the streets asking for a “penny for the guy” (and how much does a penny get you nowadays?).
For all of this love of Bonfire Night though, I know very little about the man himself – no more than the legend that has grown up around him and the plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.  Which is why I wanted to read The Real Guy Fawkes by NIck Holland, especially as I was promised the truth about the man behind the myth.
By the end of the book, I have to say I do feel like I know Guy Fawkes as a person a lot more than I will, I think, by watching the current BBC show.  This isn’t a sympathetic portrait as such but it feels like an honest one.  Fawkes is a complex character, a man driven by his faith, Catholicism.   Growing up, he witnessed people being tortured and killed for their beliefs, and it made him hard, a man who came to believe that the only way to protect his faith was by the sword.  To do this, he left his home and his family, travelled abroad and learnt to fight.
In many ways, I can’t blame him.  Elizabethan England, as a Protestant country, might have been a place that initially tolerated those who practiced Catholicism (at the same time as filling the state coffers by fining people who didn’t go to church) but as Elizabeth grew older, she also grew more paranoid and her treatment of Catholics became harsher.  Things became worse under her successor, James I of England, a paranoid man and pretty terrible king.  It was a perfect storm at a time of political and religious torment at home and abroad.
In the same way I can’t blame Fawkes, I can’t blame those that plotted with him.  What was interesting to me, beyond finding out about Guy Fawkes, was getting to know the others in the plot, how they came to the conclusion that they needed to do something so drastic and how brave they were in the end.  I think in my head, Fawkes was a bit of a lone wolf but he wasn’t.  He was one of a group of men who put their religion before anything else and who were actually led by a man named Robert Catesby, who I now want to know more of.
In fact, I want to know more in general about all the men involved and the plot itself because, if I have one complaint about this book, it’s that I didn’t get enough.  I wanted more detail, more facts, figures, more everything to feed my inner history buff.  This book is short, only 230 pages, and could easily have added another 100 without becoming boring.  I doubt it would become dry either as Nick Holland has a wonderful writing style – easy to read and personable.  I felt he knew his subject and cared for him.  It’s the first book I’ve read by the author but I’d happily read more and, I think, for anyone who wants and introduction to the events leading up to November 5th, 1605, this is a brilliant place to start.  Liked this a lot!

What could be timelier then a true story about a plot about religious extremists planning to blow-up the British House of Parliament when it opened in order to kill both the members of Parliament and England's chief executive only to be foiled by the English police? Though this plot sounds modern it happened in 1605 in England. The plot was called the Gunpowder Plot.

The plot was led by English Catholics who wanted to restore the Catholic religion to England and were upset at the persecution of the Catholics by the English Protestants. Guy Fawkes was not the instigator of the plot but he was the one that was supposed to light the fuse that would have blown up Parliament.

The book is very easy to read, even for someone like myself who had no prior knowledge of Guy Fawkes. (What got me interested in reading about Guy Fawkes was a result of reading a novel where a little English boy is all excited about Guy Fawkes Day celebrations. I wanted to learn about the history behind the celebration.)

The book gives an excellent background on the conflicts between the Catholics and the Protestants in England. One does not need to be an expert in English history to understand this book.

Furthermore, the story of the Gunpowder Plot itself reads like a thriller. It is very faced past, full of plots and intrigue..

In summation, if one wants to read a very entertaining nook about s piece of history that is like an action movie but still has relevance for today, one could not do better than this book.