Guy Fawkes, Dick Turpin and the Hidden Histories of York
- Paul Francis
- Nov 4, 2025
- 3 min read
Every year, on 5 November, fireworks light up the night sky across Britain. Guy Fawkes Night remembers the man who tried, and failed, to blow up Parliament in 1605. But while the story of the Gunpowder Plot is well known, fewer people remember that it began in York, the city where Fawkes was born.
York’s history is filled with legends like his: rebels, saints, artists and outlaws. The city’s cobbled streets and medieval towers hold centuries of stories that helped shape England itself.
Guy Fawkes: York’s Most Infamous Son
Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 on Stonegate, one of York’s most famous streets. He attended St Peter’s School, a place that still stands today, and was raised a Catholic in an age of persecution.
After his father’s death, Fawkes travelled to the continent and fought for Catholic Spain against Protestant forces in the Netherlands. His faith and his disillusionment with England’s leadership set the stage for his later actions.
In 1605, Fawkes joined a group of conspirators led by Robert Catesby. Their plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, killing King James I and replacing him with a Catholic monarch.
The plot failed when an anonymous letter revealed the plan. Fawkes was caught guarding barrels of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords. He was tortured, tried, and executed in 1606.
More than four centuries later, his name lives on in fireworks, effigies and the modern idea of rebellion.
Dick Turpin: The Romanticised Outlaw
If Guy Fawkes represents rebellion through ideology, Dick Turpin represents rebellion through legend.
Turpin, born in Essex around 1705, began as a butcher before turning to crime. He joined a gang that specialised in robbing travellers and farmhouses before becoming famous as a highwayman.
His career ended in York, where he was tried and executed in 1739. He was buried in St George’s Churchyard. Although evidence of his exact resting place is debated, the legend endures.
The Victorian imagination turned Turpin into a folk hero. The tale of his supposed overnight ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess is pure fiction, but it helped create the enduring image of the charming rogue: a figure who defied authority but captured hearts.
Alcuin of York: The Scholar Who Shaped Europe
Long before Fawkes or Turpin, York produced one of the most important thinkers of the early Middle Ages.
Alcuin of York, born in the eighth century, was a scholar, poet and teacher educated at the cathedral school that would later become part of York Minster. His brilliance caught the attention of Charlemagne, who invited him to the court of the Frankish Empire.
Alcuin helped lead the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of learning that preserved classical knowledge and influenced European education for centuries. Although he spent much of his life abroad, he always referred to himself as “Alcuin of York”.
St William of York: The Saint and the Controversy
In the twelfth century, York’s archbishop William FitzHerbert became a controversial figure. Accused of corruption and removed from office, he was later reinstated and revered for his piety. After his death, miracles were reported at his tomb, and he was canonised as Saint William of York.
His shrine in York Minster became one of the great pilgrimage sites of medieval England.
Artists and Thinkers of a Later Age
York continued to inspire creativity long after its medieval prime. The painter William Etty, born in the city in 1787, became one of the first British artists to specialise in the human form, earning both acclaim and criticism for his classical style.
Meanwhile, Laurence Sterne, clergyman and novelist, lived and worked in York while writing The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. His playful, unconventional storytelling influenced generations of writers from James Joyce to Virginia Woolf.
A City of Layers
York’s character lies in its contrasts: faith and rebellion, art and violence, beauty and fear. From the Roman walls to Viking artefacts, from medieval guildhalls to Georgian architecture, the city has absorbed every age of English history.
It gave the world both a revolutionary and a saint, both a scholar and an outlaw. Perhaps that is why York endures. It remains a place where the past never fully sleeps, and where history’s ghosts still walk the cobbled streets.