400 years later...

Today's squizz at the excellent Londonist informs us of a BBC News article covering the story that, 400 years after the event, the descendants of Gunpowder Plotters and Royalists (the Duke of Northumberland whose ancestor was the plotter Thomas Percy* and The Marquess of Salisbury who is descended from Robert Cecil**, one of King James' ministers) are meeting for a handshake of reconciliation.
Aaah. Bless.
Still, it's a nice PR fluff-type reason to kick off the start of the 400th anniversary celebrations of the Gunpowder Plot - the attempted religiously-motivated terrorist attack on the seat of UK government in 1605. Now that's worth getting the sparklers out for...

Fantastic resource on the build-up, details and aftermath of the Plot on the BBC History website, here and The Catholic Encyclopaedia gives it's tuppenceworth, too. Burke's Peerage looks at the (titled) protagonists, here.


* The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil was a three-time Tory PM; his spawn have continued in the British Conservative political tradition, as this Wikipedia article on the 7th Marquess shows. The joys of inherited influence...

** Why not read the poetry of Thomas Percy?