Katharine Wootton York’s most notorious criminal is to be celebrated in his home city for the first time in seven years as the council announces its plans for an explosive tribute to Guy Fawkes.
Born on Stonegate, York, in 1570 and educated at St Peter’s School, the legacy of Guy Fawkes’ treasonous gunpowder plot sees cities and towns across the country light up the night sky on November 5th. Yet since 2005, York’s November sky has remained decidedly quiet in terms of a civic display from the city that Guy called home.
Amid rising costs and with the last bonfire display creating havoc and confusion alongside a flood of complaints, the plans for a city celebration of Bonfire Night has been abandoned for the past seven years. However, now the council will support Rat Race Adventure Sports, who run sporting and fitness events and activities, to prepare an explosive fireworks festival on York’s Knavesmire that will see rockets ricocheting through our city and bonfires burning bright in tribute to our very own famed criminal.
Whilst the finer details of the event are still currently under wraps, organisers have vowed that York’s residents are in for a real treat with one of the biggest firework shows in our city’s memory.
This news comes at the same time that a host of other famed York rebels from the 16th and 17th century have been remembered at a special ceremony this week. Here more than 50 men and women who were killed for their political, economic or religious views were commemorated in the special service at York Tyburn, on Knavesmire and close to Tadcaster Road. Organised by the Knights of St Columba 95, a Catholic lay organisation, the service paid tribute to Christian martyrs including Thomas Pearcy, Earl of Northumberland, who was beheaded under Elizabeth I, and Margaret Clitherow, who was martyred on Ouse Bridge for regularly housing Catholic masses in her Shambles home.
