In the shadow of York Minster, St Michael le Belfrey is the only parish church in the city entirely rebuilt on the eve of the Reformation. But it owes its fame to a baptism: that of Guy Fawkes, the future powder-man of the Gunpowder Plot — the man whose effigy England still burns every 5 November.
A church on the eve of the Reformation
St Michael le Belfrey was entirely rebuilt from 1525 to 1537, in late Perpendicular Gothic — just before the Reformation put an end to this kind of great religious building campaign. It is the only parish church in York rebuilt at this hinge date. It keeps, reused from the earlier building, a fine fourteenth-century window in its east window. Nestled against York Minster, it bears witness to the vitality of urban parish life at the dawn of the great religious upheavals.
The baptism of Guy Fawkes
On 16 April 1570, a child of York was brought to the font of St Michael le Belfrey: Guy Fawkes. Thirty-five years later, this man would become the most famous of the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot (1605) — it was he who, charged with the powder placed beneath Parliament, was to make it explode to kill King James I and the Lords. Arrested the night of 4-5 November 1605, tortured and executed, he has remained the face of the failed Catholic plot. The parish register of the church keeps the trace of his baptism. (The explorer Christopher Levett, a native of York, married here in 1608.) To see: the late-Gothic architecture of 1525-1537, the reused fourteenth-century window (east window), the seventeenth-century carved pews, the register reproducing Fawkes's baptism record.
Did you know?
Every 5 November, the British burn effigies ('guys') and set off fireworks to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 — 'Bonfire Night' or 'Guy Fawkes Night'. The man whose figure has thus been burned for more than four centuries was baptised, a baby, in this peaceful York church. Few places link so directly a living national tradition to its point of origin: the font where Guy Fawkes's life began.
Notes
St Michael le Belfrey lies at York, against York Minster; a working church, open to visits. Hours to check.
Quiz
- Who was baptised at St Michael le Belfrey on 16 April 1570?
- Guy Fawkes
- Shakespeare
- James I
- What role did Guy Fawkes play in 1605?
- The powder-man of the Gunpowder Plot
- A bishop
- An explorer
- What does 'Bonfire Night' on 5 November commemorate?
- The failure of the Gunpowder Plot
- Elizabeth's coronation
- The defeat of the Armada