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"Gunpowder" - BBC

246 replies

LurkingHusband · 19/10/2017 16:30

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05j1bc9

Anyone looking forward ?

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Wellysocksbox · 26/10/2017 10:47

York woman crushed to death for being a Catholic

Dark times indeed. And her withered hand is still on show in a Museum.

Laska5772 · 26/10/2017 10:54

and the most dreadful thing is that atrocities like that are still going on int he world today ..humans are often unspeakably cruel to each other.

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LurkingHusband · 26/10/2017 11:17

If we're talking about York, then there was a massacre of Jews in the 1100s.

And within (my) living memory, two soldiers in Northern Ireland took a wrong turned and were lynched to death Sad

Personally I think pretending (or trying to pretend) that bad things never happen just makes them more likely.

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lucydogz · 26/10/2017 11:34

Nowhere have I said that these things shouldn't be discussed. I just don't think it's necessary to create sensational historical drama. After all, Wolf Hall is a great programme - did anyone feel that something was missing because it didn't have depictions of the many and disgusting way that people were executed?
There is a difference between reading about, let's say, someone being pressed to death and it being presented as entertainment on TV.

woodhill · 26/10/2017 11:57

I agree to some extent Lucy. I'm not watching as I don't want to see the graphic scenes and not knowing where they will be in programme I'd rather avoid. I love history and historical drama but I know how much the visual aspect would disturb me

I enjoyed spies programme

RhiannonOHara · 26/10/2017 12:18

lucy, Wolf Hall was concerned with different events and topics than Gunpowder is. One of the points in Gunpowder is surely to show the Gunpowder Plot in context, and how it arose from the fear/resentment/persecution in its society.

lucydogz · 26/10/2017 12:20

Welcome to the Mary Whitehouse club woodhill.

Teddy7878 · 26/10/2017 12:21

I think it was necessary to show the execution/torture scenes in Gunpowder as it gave stark context as to why they wanted to overthrow the king because of the terrible treatment of his people. The scenes lasted 30 seconds and you could just close your eyes if they were that big a deal

lucydogz · 26/10/2017 12:22

Out of interest, did it actually indicate why catholics (or, more particularly Jesuit priests) were so unpopular?

Clawdy · 26/10/2017 12:23

I agree we need to know how barbaric such practices were, and I don't object to the portrayal, but why include a scene where a woman is stripped naked in public, when apparently, that would not have happened? It makes that scene appear gratuitous.

lucydogz · 26/10/2017 12:30

as it gave stark context as to why they wanted to overthrow the king because of the terrible treatment of his people
Do you mean king James I?
So it hasn't mentioned the shock of Mary's rule, and that the Pope issued a bull against her sister Elizabeth giving catholics Carte blanche to assassinate her? So the Jesuit priests could be seen rather like terrorists?

woodhill · 26/10/2017 12:34

Hope not LucySmile

SwedishEdith · 26/10/2017 12:41

There's loads of body parts on display. I saw Edmund Arrowsmith's hand as a child. Mind you, this was in an era where people still kept dead bodies at home until burial and you went to see them.

Laska5772 · 26/10/2017 13:00

I think it would have happened Clawdy it was all about humiliation, penance and reinforcement of the 'true' way to onlookers .

In the eyes of the judges and executioners people who are against the 'required' belief system are less than human..

I don't think it was shown as gratuitous entertainment ..

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LurkingHusband · 26/10/2017 13:25

Mind you, this was in an era where people still kept dead bodies at home until burial and you went to see them.

Sir Walter Raleighs widow kept his head in a velvet bag, until her death.

Does the British Museum still display mummies ?

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lucydogz · 26/10/2017 13:33

No Laska, a woman was only crushed to death once. Clothed, and in private. Historical fact.
In the eyes of the judges and executioners people who are against the 'required' belief system are less than human.. as above, perhaps you'd like to do a bit of research about why Jesuit priests, and those whose supported them, were punished. I'm not saying it was right, just that it was rather more nuanced than you're statement suggests.

Laska5772 · 26/10/2017 13:33

And not just then women 'collaborators' in France after WW11.. Warning This is not graphic -its a Guardian history article, but disturbing all the same

Laska5772 · 26/10/2017 13:38

One reported incident..

but ill leave it now.

ShoesHaveSouls · 26/10/2017 13:38

Margaret Clitherow was stripped before being crushed, but it didn't happen in front of a baying crowd. There would have been plenty of men present to witness it though.

Moderately interesting article: Gunpowder - Fact vs Fiction

Darklane · 26/10/2017 16:12

I think in context it was necessary to depict the terrible end that awaited people for just not believing as the state decreed no matter whether it was Catholics or Protestants, both of whom suffered under the various monarchs. The dread, fear & subterfuge would be hard to comprehend in a sanitised version of history to not upset present day sensibilities.

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LurkingHusband · 26/10/2017 16:35

I find it curious we're having so many programmes about such a narrow band of history ... Gunpowder, Elizabeths Spies, David Starkey on the Reformation (now part of the "Reformation collection" I see), Lucy Worsley on Evensong ...

Especially (as Starkey notes in the current BBC History magazine) as it's worth bearing in mind the story we have been sold as history, being written by the victors, is rather .... simplistic.

Under Henry VIII, England wasn't a nation of protestants, just waiting for the King to reclaim sovereignty. It was a nation of Catholics who were told one day they are now protestants, and the King - not the Pope - is their path to salvation.

That said, it is a very interesting time and narrative. Involving alliances of Englands auld enemies; plotting, intrigue and treachery at the highest echelons of society; the ever-present threat of foreign invasion and hot gypsies thrown in. Oh, hang on. That's the news Blush. Wrong thread.

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LadyinCement · 26/10/2017 16:51

I love a bit of Gunpowder Plot. Time of year, I think, dank and misty. Obviously by celebrating Nov 5th and burning a guy, etc, we are led to believe that blowing up Houses of Parliament and killing the king was a Bad Thing.

However, watching tv series it does come across so far (ep 2) as if it's nice Catholics with handsome leader vs. mean old Protestants.

I have just dug out my Ladybird book of the Gunpowder Plot (1967). Interestingly, it says, "Thus died a man whose name has mistakenly come to mean anyone of queer or foolish appearance. Guy or Guido Fawkes was neither. He was a brave man and a gentleman, a faithful friend to the limit of endurance, ready to die for the faith in which he believed." I wonder who wrote that Ladybird book... the Pope?!

VampireSugarAndCorpseSpice · 26/10/2017 20:35

Hello, who's that? Men in Red Cloaks?

No, it can't be!!!

No one expects The Spanish Inquisition!

SwedishEdith · 26/10/2017 20:43

Mind you, this was in an era where people still kept dead bodies at home until burial and you went to see them.

I was referring to my childhood, tbh. But, yes, plenty of mummies in Liverpool and Manchester museums.

HolyShmoly · 28/10/2017 21:25

*Hello, who's that? Men in Red Cloaks?

No, it can't be!!!

No one expects The Spanish Inquisition!*

Nice to see that nobody gets painted in a particularly good light. Burning heretics isn't much better than squishing them.

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