Monument commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot Detail of Monument

This monument in the Council Chamber of the King’s House at the Tower of London is a unique reminder of one of the most notorious events in British history; the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Erected in 1608 for the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir William Waad (1546-1623), it commemorates the failure of a small group of Catholic rebels, including the infamous plotter Guy Fawkes, to blow up the House of Lords, and with it King James VI and I (1566-1625), during the State Opening of Parliament on the 5th November 1605.

Waad had played a central role in the unravelling of the Plot. After Guy Fawkes was apprehended with his barrels of gunpowder in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords he was brought to the Tower as a prisoner. There in the hall of the King’s House – then known as the Lieutenant’s Lodging – he was interrogated by Lieutenant Waad and by members of the Privy Council. Only after torture did Fawkes reveal the names of his fellow conspirators and expose the extent of the Plot.

In 1607 Waad had the hall of the King’s House remodelled. The formally double height space was divided in two by the insertion of a floor, creating a dining room downstairs and the Council Chamber above. The following year he commissioned this monument for the wall of the Council Chamber.