[happyman]

Each year on the 5th November bonfires & fireworks are lit across England in celebration of the defeat of the so-called Gunpowder Plot in 1605 when Guy Fawkes and his fellow Catholic conspirators alledgedly tried to blow up Parliament and kill the King.
This was a time when Catholics were persecuted for their faith and priests were hunted down tortured and killed.
Personally I believe it was all a set-up and what followed was a show trial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot
http://www.gunpowder-plot.org/

Even today in the town of Lewes in Sussex they burn an effigy of the Pope on a bonfire, an event I find unsettling in what is supposed to be a tolerant country.

http://www.needananswer.co.uk/lewes-fireworks-2005.html