Guy Fawkes Guy Fawkes is guilty of war crimes as defined by Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court because not only did he plan to wilfully kill King James I of England, but he also intended to destruct the Houses of Parliament to do so. Him and a group of 4 Catholic dissidents met at the Duck and Drake inn in London one day and Robert Catesby proposed the scheme to blow up the Houses of Parliament, which became known as the gunpowder plot. About a month before the bombing was set to occur, an anonymous letter was sent to the authorities advising to avoid the State Opening of Parliament due to the plot. A search party located Fawkes in his cellar with matches and 36 barrels of gunpowder. He was brought to the Tower of London and “upon the special order of King James,” was tortured. Fawkes was …show more content…
Cromwell arrived at Drogheda with 12,000 men on September 3, 1649, launching the siege. Once they breached the town on September 11, he ordered more than 6,00 men through the south walls, slaughtering all resistance. Due to the Irish being badly divided, they offered little effective resistance. Around 2,000 people died in the massacre, including 150 Parliamentarians. Cromwell’s motive for these barbaric attacks was revenge for the new Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland who was murdering Protestants as “an excuse to inflict incredible violence while showing little mercy.” The Rome Statute claims that a war crime can be “intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population”. Not only did he commit a war crime, but he also committed genocide as he killed members of a religious group. According to the Rome Statute, Cromwell is classified as a war criminal due to his genocidal actions towards the Catholic Irish during the siege of