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50 free Bonfire Night trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Every 5 November Britain burns an effigy of a man who never lit his fuse. Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars beneath the House of Lords hours before the State Opening of Parliament in 1605, and the failure of the Gunpowder Plot has been celebrated with bonfires ever since, first by law and now by habit, with fireworks, toffee and a rhyme everyone half-remembers. These 50 questions cover the plot itself — Robert Catesby and the conspirators, the warning letter, the arrest, the torture and the trial — along with the traditions that grew up around the night: the effigies, the foods, the fireworks and the towns that still do it biggest, from Sussex to Devon. There is also a round on V for Vendetta and the mask that turned a Jacobean conspirator into a modern protest symbol, plus the science of why fireworks burn in colour. Play it solo, use it as a pub quiz round for the first week of November, or print it for the classroom.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the Harry Potter books, which wizard owns Fawkes, a phoenix named after the Gunpowder Plotter?
Albus Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes takes his name from the Gunpowder Plot conspirator, and his tail feathers sit inside both Harry's and Voldemort's wands.
Q 02Which royal bodyguard, founded by Henry VII, still searches the cellars beneath Parliament before every State Opening?
Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard have searched the cellars since the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, now largely for ceremony, and share the nickname Beefeaters with the Yeoman Warders while still wearing Tudor red and gold.
Q 03Until what time does UK law allow fireworks to be set off on Bonfire Night, later than on an ordinary night?
Midnight
Midnight is the Bonfire Night exception; New Year's Eve and Diwali get 1am, and on every other night of the year fireworks must stop at 11pm.
Q 04Which Oxford museum, Britain's first public museum, holds the lantern Guy Fawkes carried the night he was caught?
Ashmolean
The Ashmolean Museum, opened in 1683 around Elias Ashmole's cabinet of curiosities, keeps Fawkes's lantern among treasures such as the Anglo-Saxon Alfred Jewel.
Q 05Which Game of Thrones actor played his own ancestor, plot ringleader Robert Catesby, in the BBC drama Gunpowder?
Kit Harington
Kit Harington was christened Christopher Catesby Harington, and he developed and produced the 2017 series as well as starring in it.
Q 06Which hacktivist collective, known for its 2008 Scientology protests, adopted the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta?
Anonymous
Anonymous wore the mask at its Project Chanology pickets of the Church of Scientology, and it spread to the Occupy movement, so the design is now often simply called the Anonymous mask.
Q 07What cry did British children use when begging money from strangers with a homemade effigy ahead of 5 November?
Penny for the guy
'Penny for the guy' dates from the late 18th century, when children first began begging with effigies of Fawkes, and the custom has now almost completely disappeared from British streets.
Q 08Northern Ireland's loyalist bonfires are lit on the eve of which date, marking William of Orange's defeat of James II?
12 July
12 July, the Twelfth, is the big Ulster Protestant day, so the Eleventh Night bonfires the evening before are Northern Ireland's own bonfire night, nothing to do with Guy Fawkes.
Q 09From which Middle English phrase, describing what villagers burned on Saint John's Eve, does the word 'bonfire' come?
bone fire
A 'bone fire' was literally a fire of clean bones and no wood, and the great 1755 Dictionary of the English Language got it wrong by deriving 'bon' from the French for good.
Q 10Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, how did Guy Fawkes escape the worst of his execution?
His neck broke on the scaffold
His neck broke on the scaffold as he was hanged, some sources saying he jumped deliberately, so he was dead before the drawing and quartering his fellow plotters endured alive.
Q 11In which northern English city, home of St Peter's School, was Guy Fawkes born to a Protestant family?
York
York's St Peter's School also taught John and Christopher Wright, two brothers who went on to join Fawkes in the plot, and Fawkes himself was baptised in the Church of England before converting to Catholicism.
Q 12Under what alias, posing as a servant of conspirator Thomas Percy, was Guy Fawkes arrested beneath the House of Lords?
John Johnson
John Johnson was the name Fawkes gave his interrogators too, and James I's torture warrant of 6 November ordered that 'John Johnson' be made to reveal his co-conspirators.
Q 13What Italian form of his name did Guy Fawkes adopt while fighting for Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years' War?
Guido
Q 21Which phrase in the warning letter did James I seize on as a hint at 'fire and powder' against Parliament?
A terrible blow
'A terrible blow this Parliament' was the letter's warning, and James read 'blow' as an explosion like the one that had killed his own father, Lord Darnley, at Kirk o' Field.
Q 22Where in Staffordshire were Robert Catesby and Thomas Percy shot dead by the Sheriff of Worcestershire's men?
Holbeche House
Holbeche House was where the rain-soaked fugitives spread their gunpowder before the fire to dry it; it caught, scorching Catesby and blinding John Grant before the siege even began.
Q 23What was done to the bodies of Robert Catesby and Thomas Percy, who had died fighting rather than face trial?
Guido is how Fawkes styled himself on a 1603 trip to Spain seeking backing for a Catholic rebellion, in a memorandum that called the new king James I 'a heretic'.
Q 14Which Catholic peer's unsigned warning letter, telling him to skip Parliament's opening, exposed the Gunpowder Plot?
Lord Monteagle
Lord Monteagle took the letter straight to Whitehall and was rewarded with £500 plus £200 worth of lands, being hailed as the country's saviour.
Q 15Which nine-year-old child of James I did the plotters plan to seize from Coombe Abbey and crown as a Catholic puppet?
Elizabeth
Elizabeth grew up to be the 'Winter Queen' of Bohemia, and when the Stuart line ran out in 1714 the British crown passed to her grandson George I, founding the House of Hanover.
Q 16Why was the State Opening of Parliament that the plotters targeted pushed back from February to November 1605?
An outbreak of plague
An outbreak of plague twice delayed Parliament, which gave the plotters time to find their gunpowder had decayed and to bring in a fresh supply hidden under firewood.
Q 17How did Guy Fawkes plan to get away after lighting the fuse, before sailing for the continent?
By boat across the Thames
By boat across the Thames was the plan, while the other conspirators raised a revolt in the Midlands, and the gunpowder had itself been rowed over from a house in Lambeth each night.
Q 18Where was Guy Fawkes tortured after James I ordered 'the gentler tortures' first, under Lieutenant Sir William Waad?
Tower of London
The Tower of London got his confession within days: James's warrant allowed manacles first and the rack if needed, and Fawkes admitted wanting to destroy the House of Lords.
Q 19Where were Guy Fawkes and three fellow plotters executed, directly opposite the building they had tried to destroy?
Old Palace Yard
Old Palace Yard at Westminster saw Fawkes dragged in on a wattled hurdle with Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood and Robert Keyes on 31 January 1606, a day after four other plotters died at St Paul's.
Q 20Which Secretary of State, by then Earl of Salisbury, was handed the warning letter while James I was away hunting?
Robert Cecil
Robert Cecil sat on the letter for days, quietly telling two earls with Catholic sympathies but keeping the King in the dark until he returned from the hunt on 1 November.
Exhumed and beheaded
Exhumed and beheaded after burial, the two ringleaders had their heads set on spikes outside the House of Lords, the building they had meant to destroy.
Q 24Which plotter, knighted by James I at Belvoir Castle, was the only conspirator to plead guilty at the trial?
Everard Digby
Everard Digby's job was to lead a 'hunting party' of armed horsemen at Dunchurch, ready to seize the princess once the explosion came, and he was executed on 30 January 1606.
Q 25Which Jesuit superior in England, who learned of the plot under the seal of confession, was executed in May 1606?
Henry Garnet
Henry Garnet answered the threat of the rack with 'Minare ista pueris', threats are for boys, and his jailers eavesdropped on his cell conversations and intercepted his secret letters to trap him.
Q 26Which courtier, made a baron in 1607, led the early-hours search of the cellars that caught Guy Fawkes on 5 November?
Thomas Knyvet
Thomas Knyvet searched with Edmund Doubleday on the King's orders and seized Fawkes as he left the cellar; a search of his pockets turned up a watch, slow matches and touchwood.
Q 27Which conspirator, long suspected of writing the warning letter to his brother-in-law, died in custody before the trial?
Francis Tresham
Francis Tresham died of natural causes on 23 December 1605, and his deathbed confession never mentioned the letter, an odd omission if he really was its author.
Q 28At which inn off the Strand did the five original plotters swear an oath of secrecy on a prayer book?
Duck and Drake
The Duck and Drake was Thomas Wintour's usual lodging in town, and Catesby had already floated killing the king to Wintour and John Wright at an earlier meeting.
Q 29In which year was the 1605 Act compelling annual church thanksgiving for the Gunpowder Plot's failure finally repealed?
1859
1859's Anniversary Days Observance Act ended a law that had required everyone to attend a 5 November service at which the Act itself was read aloud.
Q 30Which word completes the traditional rhyme 'Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder ___ and plot'?
treason
Treason completes the line, and the earliest recorded version of the rhyme dates from 1742, with most later versions opening on the same couplet.