Gunpowder, Treason and Plot: James VI & I, Survivor King

This Bonfire Night, Steven Veerapen discusses 1605's Gunpowder Plot. He will discuss the discovery of Guy Fawkes to the spreading of an official narrative which identified King James himself as the hero of the hour.

Veerapen will outline James’s use of the press and pulpit to spread word of his miraculous escape as one of a series of close-shave stories. Escapes from a witch-powered plot and the Gowrie conspiracy show how the canny king shaped his religious and monarchical identity as a divinely protected hero-king.

What will be revealed is a new James: a monarch who enthusiastically embraced the press to cast himself as Great Britain’s most magnificent escapologist.

Steven Veerapen teaches creative writing and early modern English at Strathclyde University. He writes fiction and nonfiction, all of it based in his favourite period – the always entertaining, frequently bloody early modern period. His most recent book is "Witches: A King's Obsession" and he is working on a biographical study of Henry VIII (with a focus on that king's British imperialism).