Gunpowder, Treason & Plot:
400th Anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot
Lilly Library Ball Room
November 5 to December 17, 2005

The Lilly Library presents an exhibition of one of the most potentially devastating acts of terrorism ever conceived. On the fifth of November, 1605, Catholic dissidents planned to kill King James I, Queen Anne, and their eldest son, Prince Henry, and wipe out the Protestant aristocracy by blowing up Parliament during the state opening. The plot failed, and those involved were executed. Had the plan succeeded it would have left England virtually without a governing body.

This exhibition shows some of the library's holdings relating to the Gunpowder Plot, Catholicism in Tudor England, contemporary treaties of James I, and literary works influenced by the event. Among the items on exhibit are: a letter dated November 11, 1605, concerning the discovery of the plot, King James' opening speech to Parliament (1604), a transcription of Guy Fawkes' confession in the first edition of The Workes of the Most High and Mightie Prince, Iames (1616), a first edition of William Camden's Annales Rervm Anglicarvm et Hibernicarvm Regnante Elizabetha (1615), and two sermons (1641 and 1705) inspired by the Gunpowder Plot.

Contact Becky Cape and Anthony Tedeschi for more information.