British Collection

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James 1 by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Caseby.

The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands  during which King James's nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was to be installed as the new head of state. Guy Fawkes was discovered beneath the House of Lords and subsequently arrested, tortured, convicted and executed for his involvement in the plot.