Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 5, 2016

Robert Catesby (1572?–1605) was the leader of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, commemorated in Great Britain every 5 November as Guy Fawkes Night. His family were prominent recusant Catholics. He took part in the Essex Rebellion of 1601 but was captured and assessed a large fine, after which he sold his estate at Chastleton. The Protestant James I became King of England in 1603; after he exiled priests and reimposed fines on recusants, Catesby planned to kill him by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder as a prelude to a revolt. Early in 1604 Catesby began to recruit English Catholics to his cause, including Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes. A letter sent anonymously to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, alerted the authorities, and on the eve of the planned explosion, during a search of Parliament, Fawkes was found guarding the barrels of gunpowder, and arrested. Catesby and the remaining plotters made a stand against a 200-strong company of armed men at Holbeche House in Staffordshire, where he was shot and killed. As a warning to others, his body was exhumed and his head exhibited outside Parliament.