“Remember, remember, the 5th of November…” but for what outcome? On 5 November 1605, Guy Fawkes waited with 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath Parliament, prepared to change the fate of a nation forever. Led by Robert Catesby, his objective was to annihilate the Protestant establishment and ignite a Catholic rebirth. But what if the plan hadn’t been thwarted? What if the powder had actually blown?
In this special episode of What if the Gunpowder Plot Succeeded? Not Just The Tudors… Lates, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb invites fellow Early Modern historians – Jessie Childs, Gareth Russell, and Professor Anna Whitelock – to ponder an alternate history. Together, they unravel one of Britain’s most dramatic “what ifs,” asking how the successful execution of the Gunpowder Plot would have irrevocably transformed the nation’s future.
Watch NowThe immediate aftermath
The conspirators’ immediate goal was pure destruction: to kill King James I, his heir, and the entire Protestant ruling class during the state opening of parliament. But in the programme, the panel argues the plotters were incredibly naive about the chaos that would follow.
- Power vacuum: As Jessie Childs points out, the blast would have killed not only the King, Queen, and Prince Henry, but every bishop, judge, lawyer, and high-ranking civil servant – effectively decapitating the entire Protestant establishment. With the records of government also destroyed at Westminster, even the basics of governance would have been impossible. Who would have been left to organise a legitimate resistance?
- The kidnapping plot: The conspirators planned to kidnap the King’s nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and install her as a puppet queen, marrying her off to a suitable Catholic to “restore the ancient faith.” But would foreign powers have supported this new, violently unstable regime?
- Widespread condemnation: Far from uniting Catholics, Professor Whitelock argues that while the plotters sought to establish a Catholic state, their methods and the scale of the terror would have provoked widespread condemnation, possibly leading to an immediate, massive anti-Catholic backlash and even murder of Catholics in the streets.
Gareth Russell suggests the impact would have been absolute anarchy and chaos for months, as no legitimate Protestant or secular leader would have remained to organise a resistance.
Some of the members of the Gunpowder Plot, featured in a 17th century engraving by Crispijn van de Passe
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
War and division
A successful plot would have instantly fractured the United Kingdom and plunged James’s former three kingdoms into war.
- A divided Britain: All panelists agree the Union of Crowns, which James I had skillfully forged, would have been instantly lost. Scotland would have been incandescent with fury over the regicide of its king and royal family, and would likely declared its own separate, Protestant monarch, leading to an inevitable war with an English Catholic regime.
- Ireland’s fate: The repercussions would have been different in Ireland, where the Catholic elite might have remained intact. If so, would this have potentially led to a completely different, independent Irish history?
- No easy alliances: The new regime in England would have faced immense problems securing a foreign alliance. Gareth Russell notes that while Catholic powers like Spain would have wanted peace, they would have been wary of marrying their heirs into such a risky, unstable regime that had just wiped out its own royal family.
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Prof Suzannah Lipscomb (left), with the panel (from left to right), historians Professor Anna Whitelock, Gareth Russell, and Jessie Childs.
Image Credit: History Hit
The unintended consequences
As Suzannah notes to the panel, “I was going to ask you what were the unintended consequences of this, but it feels like every consequence was unintended!” The discussion highlights how the assassination would have rippled across every facet of British culture and society, often with destructive, unintended effects:
- Cultural collapse: The plot would have effectively caused the pre-emptive euthanising of the Jacobean cultural flowering. The great writers of the era, including Shakespeare (who was the King’s man), would have lost their patronage and context. The production of the influential King James Bible would have ended.
- The martyr king: Jessie Childs notes that rather than being viewed as a tyrant, King James would have been immediately seen as a Protestant martyr, further hardening religious lines and potentially making any future reconciliation impossible.
- The seeds of revolution: Professor Whitelock suggests that the Gunpowder Plot, had it succeeded, would have been the first major instance where a story about a political “Popish plot” was confirmed, accelerating the process by which anti-Catholic anxiety became politically explosive, shifting the entire trajectory of the Stuart period. As the panel ponders, this chaos might have brought about a revolution, perhaps more aligned with the French Revolution of the 18th century, potentially eliminating the monarchy altogether.
Grievance is not a policy
The ultimate takeaway from this chilling historical conjecture is the sheer naivety of the plotters. As Gareth Russell succinctly puts it: “A grievance is not a policy.” The conspirators had no clear plan for what came after the destruction. Their act of devastating terror would have been followed by a “great silence” of governance and a massive, bloody struggle to fill the power vacuum.
