The Hanging of Guy Fawkes

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 142, 6 September 1927, Page 13

The Hanging of Guy Fawkes

His Name Was Johnson There was one exhibit at the “Daiyl Chronicle” stand, at the London Advertising Exhibition, which whetted the appetite of every man and woman interested in English history. This was a collection, in a glass case, of official gazettes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus, in “The Weekeley News,” No. 19, for “Munday, 31st January, 1606,” the public can read: “A Brief Discourse upon the Arraignment and Execution of the eight traytors—Digby, the two Winters, Graunt, Rookewood, Keyes, Bates, and Johnson, alias Guy Fawkes—four of which were executed in St. Paul’s Churchyard in London, upon Thursday, the 27th last, the other four in oid Palace Yard, in Westminster, over against the Parliament House. and with a relation of the other traytors which were executed at Worcester.” It will be news to most people that Guy Fawkes was plain Mr. Johnson We are further told of the executions: ”It was strange to note their carriage, even in thsir very countenances —some hung down the head, as if their hearts were full of doggedness, and others forcing a stern look, as if they would "fear death with a frown,” never seeming to pray—unless it were by the dozen upon their beads —and taking tobacco as if that hanging were no trouble to them.”