For the sake of bewildered Americans, Guy Fawkes was a Catholic who plotted, with several other prominent Anglo-Catholics, to blow up the houses of Parliament, killing the King and Parliament. They came extremely close to succeeding and imposing a Catholic dictatorship on England. This was also the goal, later and unrelated, of those who pushed the cause of "Bonnie Prince Charlie." Why people now romanticize these people is beyond me. The freedom that we now possess, tainted though it sometimes be, is the result of these brigands FAILING to destroy one of the most socially advanced governments of its time.

If you want to know what a "Guy" looks like, check out "V For Vendetta." V always wears a Guy mask.