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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1998-11 > 0910181033
From: <>
Subject: Re: New URL for Gunpowder Plot Society Web Site
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 12:03:53 GMT
But the fun part is that the plot has two or more dimensions!!! While we can
discuss the freedom fighter aspect we must also recognize the terrorist
aspect. Where would the changes (that is the instalation of the rule of the
papacy or a state influenced by the papacy have taken us- would it be closer
to democracy or closer to absolutism and tyranny?) England at the time was
emerging as a pluralist state. Not perfect but moving toward existence as a
nation ruled centrally by law and parliament. As the century progressed the
rule of parliament increassed. The trouble with the plotters is that they did
not respect the rule of law and indeed did not respect their emergent nation.
Instead of working with the governmentthey discarded it and recognized
instead the government of the Pope. They invited the enemy of their own state
Spain to intervene. Their terrorist act set back relations between the state
and the catholic minority for centuries. Clearly the way forward, that is
toward positive change which I hold to be the development of Democracy, was
not through terror but through building the state into a parliamentary
democracy. In order for a pluralist state to exist the primacy of external
powers such as the papacy, then quite the secular state determined to bring
england back into the fold, must be discarded in favor of the primacy of
one's own state. The more the state felt itself threatened by dissloyal
catholics the more it acted to protect itself by limiting their ability of
catholics to move into positions of power and influence from which they
could be dangerous. This action reaction cycle postponed the development of
trust by the majority of the minority. If one looks at the way the plot was
celebrated in the colonies prior to the revolution one sees clearly the
interest in celebrating the separation of english government (state) from the
rule of the political papacy (church). Processions in Boston and in New York
burned both the Pope and the devil as well as the young pretender.
Celebration of the plot's discovery focuses upon the importance of people
power in halting the dramatic swings of the pendulum from one extreme of
religious rule of the state to the other over time. Bloody Mary James II
Cromwell etc... Celebration of the 5th of November in the colonies paved the
way for a further adjustment of english government in america and a further
improvement of parliamentary democratic government. After the plot
celebration took on a life of its own as a moving force in history. We are
both glad that the plot was stopped in its attempt to undermine and set back
the development of the "mother Parliament" while at the same time we
recognize that the people in the street as opposed as to the people on some
powerful religious or monarchical throne still possess the gunpowder which
Fawkes did not have the chance to light. We who celebrate however have a
much more worthy cause in our democracy than had Fawkes in his attempt to
destroy the state in order to install the tyranny of the papacy and perhaps
the tyranny of the catholic state of spain,both institutions which were not
known for their democratic tenancies. The plot stands at a crtitical point in
the development of parliament and democracy as we know it. The road of the
plotters would have taken england closer to absolutism while the road of the
parliament and government was to take England and our democratic heritage
closer to perfection. True things were not perfect- much evolution and many
setbacks lay ahead however, the setback represented by the plot was infact
avoided. Stop in to read more of celebrations in the colonies and the
history and celebration of the plot-
http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~cbladey/guy/html/main.html
Conrad Bladey
In article <>,
(Kidney John) wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Nov 1998 10:33:49 GMT, wrote:
>
> >
> >Remember Remember the 5th of November!!!!
> >
> They were after the monarch, and for this reason, should be
> congratulated/celebrated, as good anti-royalists. Go Guido!
> --
>
>
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