To do this, they decided to stockpile gunpowder under Parliament and blow the building up, during the Parliament's opening ceremonies, at which the king would be present. As word of Parliament and the king's deaths spread, an uprising would begin in other parts of England. Everything was set by July 20, 1605, but the opening of Parliament was delayed by the plague, and it was rescheduled for November.
As the date approached, one of the conspirators, in worry for fellow Catholics who would be present, sent out at least one warning note. Receiving one of the notes, on October 26, Lord Monteagle took it and warned the crown. Despite knowing they were compromised, the conspirators continued with their plans.
On November 5, 1605, the day Parliament had been rescheduled to open, the basements of Parliament were searched by royal decree. Guards found Guy Fawkes there with a couple dozen barrels of gunpowder, under his guard. The Gunpowder Plot had been stopped and Parliament and King James I had been saved.
Fawkes became one of the key faces of the act, and for centuries was reviled as a traitor. Even Colonial American rebels, fighting for their independence, considered Fawkes something to be abhorred.
It wasn't until 1841 that he was portrayed from a sympathetic light, in Guy Fawkes; or, The Gunpowder Treason, by William Harrison Ainsworth. Then in 1905, a series of penny novels and children's books brought him out as an action hero. In 2005, the movie V for Vendetta sought to show him as a patriot hero. Now copies of the Guy Fawkes mask are used in protests around the world, as a symbol of fighting against tyranny. Hacker group Anonymous and the Occupy movements, most often use them.
Certainly the image of Fawkes has under gone some changes throughout history. Ironically, in his changed form, he looks to outlive the facts of what actually occurred. Historically, Guy Fawkes was a religious terrorist. But the masses seem to be more and more making a hero of him.
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