On November 5th 1605, Guy Faukes, a catholic mercenary, was found in a cellar of the Parliament, which was situated in London, with barrels of gunpowder. He planed to blow up this official edifice while the king, James the first, the government and the parliament members were sitting as usually. Whereas everybody was supposed to decease during this attempt, the plot was uncovered. But why did he want to assassinate everyone ? Actually, the government and the king were protestant. Why was the king protestant ?
In 1535, Henry VIII married to Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor, but their couple was sterile and they couldn´t have child. Thus the English King wanted to divorce and to ask this to the pope because he was the only one able to annul a catholic marriage. But as Catherine didn´t want to divorce, she asked her nephew into prohibiting the pope to annul this marriage, the Holy Roman Emperor being above him hierarchically, and consequently the pope refused. To reach his aim, he created his own church and divorced to get married to Anne Boleyn who gave him a daughter, Elizabeth, who had also a child, James the first. This one kept her mother´s religion.
About James the first, because he was protestant, his population had to adopt his religion even if she were catholic at first. Guy Faukes meant to kill him to bring back Catholicism to England. But he was discovered, tortured and quartered, hanged and drawn.