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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Guy Fawkes

Fawkes's father was either a notary or proctor of the ecclesiastical courts and later an advocate of the consistory court of the Archbishop of York. Edward's wife, Edith Blake, was descended from prominent merchants and aldermen of the city. Edward Fawkes died in 1579, and his widow remarried in 1582, to a Catholic, Denis Bainbridge of Scotton. The family were known to be recusants, resisters of the authority of the Church of England, and it is probable that his stepfather's influence contributed to Guy's affiliation to Catholicism; Fawkes finally converted to Catholicism around the age of 16. In the same year that Fawkes converted to Catholicism (1586), he would be made brutally aware of the repression the English Parliament enacted on local Catholics. Margaret Clitherow, later known as the "Pearl of York", was executed in her hometown that year by being crushed to death. She had originally been arrested for harbouring Catholic priests in her home.

If you want to know more you may go to Wikipedia, which has a lot of references and bibliography about it.

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This is just an homage to all the Catholics persecuted and killed in England before and after Guy Fawkes, for centuries.

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