Guy Fawkes’ lantern on display at Oxford Museum

The lantern that Guy Fawkes is thought to have carried on the night he was arrested on November 5, 1605, is on display in a museum.

More than four hundred years later the lantern can be seen in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Gunpowder plotter Guy Fawkes was famously captured in the basements beneath the Houses of Parliament in London as he planned to blow up the king.

Ashmolean Museum Director Xa Sturgis said: “This is a beacon designed for such a conspiracy.”

Mr. Sturgis explained that it was “the lantern that holds the candle, which will light the fuse and blow up Parliament.”

He said: “There are many museums with similar items claiming to be a Mary Antoinette slipper or Queen Elizabeth’s handkerchief.

“But we know it is definitely that lighthouse because it came to Oxford so long ago.

“It arrived in the collection at Oxford in 1641; it was given by the brother of the man who arrested Guy Fawkes in Parliament, and it’s as good a source as you can get.”

He said: “It’s really exciting to have the lighthouse here.

“This is a very special flashlight because it has a mechanism inside that allows you to turn off the light.

“The flame of the candle may be hiding there, hidden in the darkness, and this is a lantern designed for such a plot.”

“We commemorate it by placing it on the pyre and burning it, so we celebrate the liberation of British democracy and the King,” he added.