The sign in the pub window caught my eye as we walked past and I snapped a picture with my phone. I meant to go back and find out more, but that didn’t happen in the four days we spent in York last summer. Next time I guess.

Probably everyone in Britain knows who Guy Fawkes was. I doubt that is as true in Canada and Americans have probably never heard of him or the “Gunpowder Plot.” Quick synopsis: in 1606 Fawkes was one of a group plotting to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords (I presume with the king in it). They were Roman Catholics, upset that The United Kingdom had a Protestant ruler and seeking change through violent means.

In England they celebrate the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot with Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, but I’m not sure why. Maybe everyone just needs an early November party, a chance to take a break before it gets cold and everyone likes fireworks and bonfires. Yes, I know the origins of the event, but it has been more than 400 years, I wonder how relevant it is.

Today we would be quick to label Guy Fawkes. The government would call him a terrorist. Others would say he was a freedom fighter. Perspective is so important in these things. We take great comfort in labels, in having black and white answers to sometimes complicated questions.

In some respects I appreciate that, since I am a black and white sort of person. I believe in right and wrong, in absolute Truth and our ability to know what that Truth is. Yet at the same time I know people sometimes do bad things with the best of intentions. I don’t know enough about Guy Fawkes to judge his intentions. There is no doubt that Catholics were a persecuted minority. Does that justify trying to bring about regime change?

Serendipity plays a big part in tourism; at least I have always thought so. And such is the case in York. We had walked past the cemetery of St. George’s Church a couple of times, and I had noted that the stones were all inset into the grass except one. I wondered if that might be anyone famous. So we checked it out.

It was someone famous, at least a name I recognized, though my wife didn’t. Richard Turpin was notorious highwayman, a common thief really, who has been romanticized in popular fiction. He was not the dashing heroic figure of legend – he was a thief who robbed people traveling on the highway.

I knew Dick Turpin’s name, but I had never connected him with York. (I hadn’t thought of Guy Fawkes in that regard either.) I have no idea why his gravestone is the only one not set in the ground of the graveyard.

Guy Fawkes and Richard Turpin. Two names, tied by geography and folklore. You never know what you might find if you keep your eyes open.