Guy Fawkes little known connection to Barry revealed

Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes was a central character in the plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on November 5, 1605.
The timing of the explosion was supposed to ensure that King James I and the Members of Parliament were killed.
Guy Fawkes was arrested, tortured, and gave up the other names so that all could be arrested, or killed, by November, 12.
There is no doubt they would all have been tortured following arrest and they were all tried and convicted on January 26, 1606.
The executions took place on January 30 and 31 and each of the conspirators were sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered.
Barry Town Council deputy mayor and legal professional, Cllr Dennis Clarke said: “That was a sentence that was particularly barbaric.
“It had been perfected under the direction of King Edward I when punishing Dafydd ap Gruffydd on October 3, 1283 for High Treason, for being the last independent Prince of Wales.
“The punishment was perfected to make sure he suffered.
“What was devised was firstly being ‘drawn’ through the streets by a horse, then hanged alive – without the drop that is designed to kill -, revived, emasculated then disembowelled and his entrails burned before him.
“He would then be decapitated and his body cut into four parts.
“It was then usual to parboil the body parts, to slow decomposition, before exhibiting them around the town/city.
This is what the trial judge ordered for Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators for the crime of High Treason - that judge was Sir John Popham, of Somerset, but the judge had interests in South Wales.
“The connection with Barry is that he (the judge) was a landowner in East Barry,” said Cllr Clarke.
“He owned an area that included the castellated manor house that included the grade 1 listed dovecote just off Gladstone Road, in Barry.

The Dovecote, off Gladstone Road, Barry

“He had owned the land since about 1584. He was very much connected to the area having married Jane Stradling, a daughter of Sir Edward Stradling of St Donat's Castle, Glamorgan.
“Sir John did what was expected of him - convictions and a sentence designed to ensure real suffering as a part of the execution.”
Guy Fawkes, however, had other ideas.
“Guy Fawkes was a brave, experienced soldier,” added Cllr Clarke. “He did not fancy ‘hanging around’ to witness his emasculation and disembowelment before dying.
“He knew he was going to die, but he had just one way open to him to cheat the sentence to some extent.
“He will have been drawn to the execution site, probably having been tied to a wooden frame.
“On his arrival at the scaffold, on climbing to the ropes, he threw himself off the scaffold in such a way that he would land and break his neck.
“He was dead before being hanged and did not wait to witness the truly painful additional, gruesome punishment.
“It was the only way he had to defeat the horror of the sentence that Sir John Popham was obliged to order.
“All body parts will have been par-boiled and added to poles to be exhibited around London to warn off others.”
This type of execution stood the test of time until 1870 when the punishment was limited to hanging with the option for the monarch to replace the hanging with beheading.
Beheading was eventually banned in 1973 with the death penalty for treason abolished in 1998.