Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: GUNPOWDER — In 1605, Kit Harington’s ancestor plots bombing of Parliament in real world thrones game

"The air in this house 

is rancid with popery"

All eyes forward tonight and for weeks to come on Game of Thrones' Jon Snow, but the man who animates him, Kit Harington — given name, Christopher Catesby Harington — is a cousin on both his mother’s and his father’s side of one Robert Catesby, instigator of the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Catesby’s father had been jailed by Queen Elizabeth I (d 1603) for his Catholic loyalties and the son became a religious warrior when persecution continued under Protestant King James I. The plotters aimed to incinerate Parliament with James present, hoping to set off a revolution against Protestantism that had grown lethally repressive to Catholics since Henry VIII broke with Rome.

Harington stars in the 3-episode series (2017) that he helped create and co-executive produce for HBO; it is worth the watch to experience the belligerent period up close and to wonder at our own history of religion gone amok. Unfortunately not much empathy for its characters is written into the script to offset the barbarity. Rather one relates as though to a graphic novel of villains and victims (below, archival sketch of key plot rebels).

Nobleman Catesby, a widower with a young son, is sharing in a private mass at the manor estate of relatives when a troop of the king’s enforcers bang at the entrance; two priests are swiftly hidden and artifacts secreted away; no evidence of Catholic observance is apparent. But, says the king’s man, Sir William Wade: ‘the air in this house is rancid with popery.’ An extensive search turns up a young Jesuit; he is arrested along with the estate’s owner, Catesby’s relative, and shortly murdered in front of our eyes — the young Jesuit hung, drawn, and quartered, the woman crushed to death by weights (below). Catesby’s rage and indignation matured into the failed plot; many years of civil disorder followed.

A tightly loyal group of Catholics, prompted by Catesby, answered back with violence of their own. He masterminded a scheme to blow up Parliament on opening day when King James and his son would be in the hall. An outsider was added to the conspirators, an expert in explosives — one Guy Fawkes. It is Fawkes who was found standing guard over barrels of gunpowder secreted in the cellars below Parliament and hauled away for torture, followed by Catesby and the others being hunted down (shot or hung). Fawkes, caught with the goods, became most associated with the plot; it’s now feted every Nov 5 as Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night — partying that is far removed from the origin of those murderous Catholic persecutions. The contrast between the modern yearly celebrations and the ugliness of the real story led some shocked viewers of this series to complain, even vomit at the depicted violence.

But the story is an early example of modern home-grown terrorism, in this case intertwining with fabled centuries of Catholic abuse. Some have claimed that anti-catholic propaganda helped create Protestant England — fueled by newspapers, memoirs, bibles, books, et al, then circulating in the new age of the printing press. It seems new technology and waves of progress are followed by magnified outbreaks of rage — religious hysteria and persecution followed the printing press that is matched today by the internet propelling terrorism and worldwide right-wing populism. Too much change makes people crazy! Below is an archival depiction of an early celebration of Guy Fawkes Night.

In any event, anti-catholicism was not the doing of God in Henry VIII’s time or since— it was kings and queens waging politics. To protect the monarch, to prevent rebellion, discriminatory laws were passed. Oaths had to be sworn, Anglican church attendance expected. Catholic mass was banned and forced into secrecy. “As Catholics,” Catesby intones: “we are hunted, imprisoned, fined, banished, tortured, and hanged.” The deprivation of religious freedom led to civil disorder at home, of which the Gunpowder Plot made a thunderous noise in public consciousness despite there being no actual bang of gunpowder in that November of 1605.

A cast of familiars play these parts. Tom Cullen of Knightfall and Downton Abbey is Guy Fawkes. And you wouldn’t recognize the man in his broody, feral, scowling silence, as though he had just leaped off the screen of a Black Sails pirate schooner rather than out of Lady Mary’s bed as Tony Gillingham. Harington on the other hand is described by Mike Hale in a NYT review (12/17) in all his Jon Snow glory: ‘beautiful hair, soulful eyes and a one-size-fits-all blank expression that serves him for both mournful gazing and impassioned speeches.’ He works it with grace.

Our villains include the mincing Scotsman King James I, satirized mildly as a bit of a fop by Glaswegian Derek Riddell (below, center, a veteran of Happy Valley, Fantastic Beasts, Shetland); Mark Gatiss, the king’s secretary of state and evil doer, Lord Robert Cecil, his head crooked to denote Cecil’s scoliosis, thought to have been Shakespeare’s model for hump-backed, Machiavellian Richard III, is familiar from Game of Thrones, The Favourite, and Sherlock; Shaun Dooley as Sir William Wade, executor of Cecil’s ugly policies, played in White Queen, Misfits, Jamestown (he is bottom left in the magazine spread pictured at end). Below, Lord Cecil is to King James’ left, and James’ chamberlain, is far right, of whom he was rather fond.

Marvelous actress Liv Tyler is altogether the most sympathetic character in the series as Anne Vaux, cousin to Catesby and carer of his son. She sheltered her (apparent lover) priest, Father Henry Garnet (Peter Mullen), who opposed violence and Catesby’s plot.

It is particularly through Tyler that we come to feel grief about the frenzy over a freedom we take nearly for granted (and are reminded of religious extremists that wage terror elsewhere on the globe in our own century). And it is through the care of Anne Vaux we are imagined to have young Robert Catesby, Jr., sire the line that has produced our current prince, Christopher Catesby Harington — Jon Snow.

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman.

Iraq, the next generation: Atia & Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji-IN MY MOTHER'S ARMS

Have you ever wondered -- perhaps as you were trying to reason why the middle east seems so full of people whose main busi-ness in life is to kill others who think and believe differently than they do -- just where Iraqi men come from? The answer, it would seem, on the basis of the new docu-mentary IN MY MOTHER'S ARMS, is from abused Iraqi boys. (If you choose to replace the world Iraqi with Saudi Arabian, Lebanese, Iranian, Libyan and on and on, I am not sure that there would be much difference in the end result.) The un-cared-for and un-cared-about children of the Middle East seem doomed to become the next generation's sacrificial cannon fodder, in this case with explosives strapped to their chests.

The above quiet rant is the result of my having viewed this exceptionally moving (and depressing) documentary, from brothers Atia and Mohamed Al-Daradji (shown above with Atia on the right), about a good man named Husham Al Thabe, who, with a very few friends/volunteers, cares for a group of orphans in Al-Sadr City, one of the least safe districts of Iraq. From the film's begin-ning and throughout, we see Hasham on the phone and in person, literally begging for funds to help run his "safe house" for these orphans. The filmmaking brothers follow Hasham and his kids: he to his home, where his family wants more of him and less of those orphans; the kids at play and to their school and later to a theater project aimed at giving them (and one boy in particular) greater life.

That boy is a stunningly beautiful, hazel-eyed child named Saif (above), who has been brought to the edge of trauma and who-knows-what-else by the loss of his parents and subsequent life on the streets and perhaps in state-run orphanages -- which Hasham feels are to be avoided at all costs, as the boys are almost certain to be abused in these places.

The boys themselves -- these includes 32 different youngsters, another of whom named Mohammed, looks to be a champion swimmer and diver -- would appear to do just about anything to stay out of these state-run institutions. In one scene, we see a child talking about what happened to him there, and it's appalling.

The state itself will give Hasham (shown above) no help. It would rather spend its time, money and effort waging sectarian war. So the state officials tell Hasham to simply give up his 32 boys to a state-run home. He won't, and continues to look anywhere, everywhere for funding. At one point along the way, a local mosque appears to be a possible benefactor, followed by -- hello! -- the United Nations. And, oh, do the boys get excited over this!

The Al-Daradji brothers capture Hasham and his kids in all kinds of moods and activities. At one point, I think it's Saif who insists, "I want to eat alone." And in the midst of his other problems, Hasham shakes his head and mutters, "On top of everything, I have moody teenagers..."  Yes, all this -- and those ever-present power outages, too.

It is especially interesting to see and hear the various responses Hasham and his boys get from the male populace regarding his crisis. One fellow appears to breakdown in tears and sobs over the closing of the orphans safe house; another seems happy to donate money for a cause this just; yet another, clearly "religious," find an excuse by claiming that what Hasham is doing somehow goes against his religion.

One of Hasham's care-givers has already been shot dead. Bombs go off perilously close to the safe house. Why? Is there any rhyme or reason here? Certainly not to us westerners. But we do catch a curse being muttered that uses Saddam Hussein's name, something that would not have happened before the toppling of the dictator, I suspect.

The movie tells us that there are now more than one million war orphans in Iraq, and though the film does not raise this question, I think any intelligent viewer cannot help but ask it. What is America's responsibility in all this? Wasn't it our own Colin Powell who noted, "You break it, you own it," or words to that effect.

In the theater scenes, like the one above, songs are sung, and the boys, especially Saif, come back and back again to the lyrical refrain, "in my mother's arms." Eventually, that phrase can break your heart. Finally we're left with the sense that the state of Iraq would rather make war on itself than turn its boys into productive men.  (We won't even get close to what Iraqi or other middle eastern women have in store.) And yet men like Hasham, below, do exist there, along with our film-making brothers, who are willing to go on record about them. So I guess there is hope. Of a sort.

In My Mothers Arms opens this Monday, October 8th and runs through October 14, showing nightly at 7:30 PM at the Maysles Cinema, as part of the Cinema's Documentary in Bloom series. Click here for directions, tickets or more information.