Police say Guy Fawkes plot still relevant

The factors that drove a group of religious zealots to try blowing up parliament 400 years ago are as relevant today as they were then, police said on Thursday.

The Gunpowder Plotters, the most famous of whom was Guy Fawkes, were Catholic fanatics in an age when Catholicism was a persecuted minority faith in England.

There are communities today who feel the same way, and our job is to try to build an inclusive society so that minorities do feel they have a voice, police Commander Steve Allen told Reuters at the opening of a special exhibition on the plot.

He was tortured on the rack for several days in the Tower of London - on the direct orders of the king - before finally confessing but naming only one other conspirator.

That however was enough for the forces of law, who killed or captured, tortured and executed many of the 17 others believed to have been directly or indirectly involved.

This is clearly resonant today. There are people in religious minorities who feel obliged to resort to violence to get their voices heard, he added.

The exhibition, with police-style profiles of the plotters is being staged at Shakespeare's Globe theatre because he wrote Macbeth immediately afterwards with a strong signal of support for the king, according to co-curator Daniel Hahn.

Fawkes, a minor conspirator, was caught on the night of November 4, 1605 with 36 barrels of gunpowder under the Houses of Commons, preparing to detonate them the following day when King James I was due to open parliament.

The government issued a book with confessions and details of the plot and even in the 21st century Fawkes is burned in effigy up and down the country on November 5.