We didn’t make it to a fireworks display this year. Partly this is because of our theatre trip (which Rich ended up missing because we didn’t want to leave Harper alone with all the fireworks) which coincided with our town display, and partly because tonight is the last day of the half-term and we had too much to do getting everyone ready for the new term.
It is rather strange that we commemorate this failed act of regicide from over 400 years ago. An act of terrorism and insurrection gone wrong, the gunpowder plot is something every child in Britain learns about (and then every teenager studying Macbeth learns about again). It is said that William Shakespeare’s father may have known the plotters, having drunk regularly in the pub where they met. This is one of the reasons we think that Shakespeare wrote the Scottish play just one year after the plot; the play shows what happens when someone does manage to commit regicide (spoiler alert: it does not end well for Macbeth). Shakespeare would have been keen to demonstrate to James I (his royal patron) that he thought killing a king was a bad idea. Throw in some conniving witches too (a pet interest of the King), and he was on to a winner.
Notes From My Day 