The BBC has called Guy Fawkes an “astonishing activist” and likened him to Nelson Mandela.
In history resources for children, the plotter who tried to blow up Parliament and King James I is counted among civil rights activists “who wanted to change the world”.
The BBC Bitesize material for primary schools ranks Fawkes alongside Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist, Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragette, and Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader.
The material takes the form of an educational game titled “Back in time with… Astonishing Activists”, which invites children into the world of the campaigners, including the would-be regicide.
The game appears to have been created in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and the tagline of the resource on the BBC website states that children can “take a trip back in time and learn all about the people who fought racism, campaigned for women’s rights… and changed the world forever”.
The game explains Fawkes’s involvement in the failed 1605 plot to detonate gunpowder beneath Parliament during the state opening, potentially killing the king and several hundred courtiers.
The plot was intended to remove the new king, amid disappointment that concessions for Catholics did not materialise when he took the throne, and to bring about an armed rebellion that would install a sympathetic ruler.
Fawkes was caught, tortured and executed. His co-conspirators, including Robert Catesby, the plot leader, were hunted down and killed....<<<Read More>>>...