Alternative History

The Gunpowder Plot, known in the Papal States as the Jungist Plot, was a 1535 plot and attempt to blow up the College of Cardinals by the Black Hand Society, founded by Hans Gruber in Hesse. Discovery of the plot lead to highly increased tensions and antagonism between Jungism and Catholicism, with the Pope supporting a "Crusade" against Jungists in Germany, and the Jungists refusing to allow Catholics into Germany to persecute the Black Hand. The mainstream Catholic opinion was that the Plot was orchestrated by Jungists, but after being interrogated by Papal and government authorities in Hesse, the Black Hand was seemingly revealed to be a Catholic organisation trying to frame the Jungists.

History[]

Background[]

Thomas Cajetan Kupferstich

Lucius IV, known to Jungists as "the Pike", had been assassinated immediately prior to the Plot.

Prior to her death in 1533, Agnes, Duchess of Hesse, sent men to assassinate Pope Lucius IV. Although they were caught, the Pope died of an infection resulting from his wounds the following year. Thus, a new Papal Conclave was held to elect the new Pope. Papal Guardsmen noticed the strange arrival of several wagons of gunpowder in Rome and uncovered a plot to blow up the papal conclave by a candlemaker. The conspirators were caught with incriminating documents and correspondence. The trail lead directly back to a conspiracy in Hesse led by Hans Gruber. Whether it was sponsored by the government or not, many were outraged by the event and calls emerged from around the Catholic world for Hesse to persecute the group and allow Papal inquisitors or even a crusade against Hesse and its Jungist allies which "have so blatantly declared themselves for Satan."

Papal Response[]

With the end of the Conclave, Cardinal Arsaell Esturlungio was elected pope with the name Francis I.

In a letter to the ruler of Hesse, the pope demanded that they capture Hans Gruber and all members of his satanic society and give them to the Papal States. The pontiff also demanded that Papal Inquisitors be part of the capture of these assassins. Secretly, the pope made plans to a possible crusade against Hesse. Regarding the participation of Jews in the recent assassination attempts, the pope decided to write a bull that would expel all of them from the Papal States, but was stopped by Cardinal-Secretary Giovanni Carafa and other Spirituali cardinals. Due to this the bull was changed. The bull issued was named Cum Nimis Absurdum and ordered the creation of a Jewish ghetto in Rome. The pope set its borders near the Rione Sant'Angelo, an area where large numbers of Jews already resided, and ordered it to be walled off from the rest of the city.

The pope also wrote to all the Catholic military orders asking them to send members to Rome to establish the Pontifical Guard, which would be responsible to protect the city against future attacks of Protestants and to be the bodyguards of the Pontiff, together with the Celtic Guard. Russia, which had recently created a secret police, sent some of its own to train the new Papal secret police.

Jacopino del Conte Retrato de cardenal Kunsthistorisches mv

Francis I, the new Pope, supported taking harsh measures against the Jungists.

The pope wrote to all Catholic leaders saying that the Jungism must be declared as dangerous to the peace and all Jungists in their lands must be destroyed, or they can also end being targeted by these killers and liars that call themselves Christians. The pope also considered the Jungist leaders as dangerous and untrustworthy, but he was refrained from attacking them by Cardinal-Secretary Giovanni Pietro Carafa and other Spirituali cardinals that this action can cause a war. Pope Francis and the more radical members of the Zelanti faction considered the Spirituali as crypto-Protestants and planned to use the Inquisition to suppress the movement, but due to the popularity of some Spirituali, such as Gaetano dei Conti di Thiene, these plans were stopped. Due to the latest events, the pontiff strengthened the inquisition in a way that has never been seen before. Several books deemed as heretical were placed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.  Across the Papal States several books were burned and people arrested for being considered heretics. After their trials some were declared innocent, but others are considered guilty and burned at the stake. Pope Francis participated of the entire process made by the Inquisition. Is said that one day after a heretic was burned at the stake a Dominican friar asked the pontiff why he participated in nearly all process and then Francis said: "Even if my own father were a heretic, I would gather the wood to burn him". 

Jungist Response[]

Carolus Scribani ( painting of van Dyck)

Nietzche denounced the attacks

The attempt to assassinate the pope was condemned by the Hessian government, with whoever it was that was responsible for such a thing condemned, to be hunted down by the Hessian government. To this end, Hessian soldiers managed to arrest several members of the plot, and they revealed in confession that they were actually Catholic. According to this version of events, the plot had been a false flag attack, or an attack to frame the Jungists, that backfired. This investigation was overseen by Martin Breuer, the Primate of Germany within the Catholic church as appointed previously by the Pope. The Hessian government tried to stop these radical Catholics, and promoted non-violence between Catholics and Jungists. The government stated that Jungists must not "stoop to the Pope's level when he assassinated the peaceful intellectual Konrad Jung".

As such, this became the official opinion of the Thuringian government, and what was published nationwide and beyond, and was also what Breuer prescribed to the Catholic and Jungist churches under his authority. However, it was obvious that outcome would not satisfy all. The mainstream Catholic opinion remained that the attack was planned by radical Jungists, Nonetheless, mainstream Jungists distanced themselves from acts of terrorism and that event, and even showed solidarity toward the Catholics and those effected. A diplomatic mission was sent to Italy to apologize on behalf of the church as a whole, and to demonstrate and make plans toward Thuringia’s ongoing response in hunting down and persecuting the Black Hand. Benedikt Nietzche would remark,

"The terrorist order has remarked that they are Catholic and that they find their actions justified to catalyze violence against their Jungist enemies, and the Catholics deem they are no Catholic order. And I agree. Others claim the terrorist order has remarked they are Jungist and that they find theory actions justified to catalyze violence against their Catholic enemies, and the Jungists deem they are no Jungist order. And I agree. It is antithetical to Christianity, to the point of breaking any scripture you attempt to bend, to claim that they are Catholic, Jungist, or Christian at all. As such there is no dichotomy to be falsely applied, in which we must side with that of violence, in opposition to our true values, to antagonize the other tribe. Neither tribe welcomes such barbaracy. And both tribes are united in a common goal today."

As such a type of inquisition occurred in Thuringia for the first time in some forty years. It was crucial to the government that no Catholic of Papal agent set foot in Thuringia – such an act would, according to their government, be an infringement of Thuringia’s sovereignty and complete rejection of any Papal authority, and would likewise be very unpopular in the wake of the Pope’s actions decades prior in Thuringia – but nonetheless the Thuringian government still claimed to persecute such radicals to the best of their ability. Thuringia stated that any attack against Hesse would be viewed as an opportunistic and illegal powergrab, and a wrongful attack against those not responsible for the attack. As such the standing army was placed defensively across the Ratian Union, to ensure that this misunderstanding did not beget violence. Among the peasantry, misinformation had notably charged many to have a zealous opinion against Catholics. When news reached Thuringia from Rome of the Pope’s speeches calling for violence against Jungists and the destruction of lands in Germany, this further outraged the people of the nation. Nietzche would remark that he had done what he could to keep the floodgates closed, but if another insult arrived from the Pope it might be the final chip in the wall. Noted extremist and exile Peter Meise would remark that blowing up the College of Cardinals was actually "extraordinarily good and the right thing to do". He would publish a book on the subject at some point after the event, writing numerous defenses of the action, chief among them that a rationale for why the attack was a reciprocal and justified counterattack against an invasion the Pope started, and that the Pope as Antichrist should be stomped out at every available avenue by righteous Christians. Granted Meise’s works would not reach Thuringia for a decade after, his book becoming an extremist holy grail hard to come by unless within a select number of secret circles.

Perhaps the most potent and scathing opinion of the affair written to the Papacy by a major figure was the rebuttal given by representative Ingo Marx, who wrote the following dissenting opinion:

The legacy of the Pope is violence. When their authority is challenged, the proven, favorite instrument of the deceiver is the act of violence in the form of crusades, inquisitions, and killings, to silence those who wish to rebuild Christianity against his graven image. It was indisputable that Konrad Jung was a peaceful thinker who condemned violence of any kind: that is the foundation of Jungism. Jesus Christ once said, ‘But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.’ (Matthew 5:39–42) It is this doctrine that Jung followed, and that all the Apostles and early church fathers followed, but somewhere along the way this was lost by the Pope; he founded his modern church on a different foundation, not the one that Peter founded his upon. To claim that the Pope is related to Peter would be a great travesty, as it has become clear that the modern Pope is a different institution than what Jesus would recognize, and thus it became in the hands of the reformers to right this egregious masquerade. Likewise, just as the Pope or his adherents murdered the innocent man Jung, they have a continual history of foreign intervention to the detriment of the world and to the complete embarrassment of Christ. The Papacy has supported countless crusades called erroneously in his name; wars of political and sacreligious aggression, contrary to what can be gleaned from the Word of God. In a long train of abuses, comes their most recent act of barbaric pillage: the so-called Thuringian Crusade.

In 1492 an army of zealots came to Germany, not to spread the message of the Lord, but to rape and pillage the innonence of the community. It was to the detriment of all that this occurred, from their great killing of innocence, to their destruction of Germany, to their humiliating portrayal of Christianity, which ironically inspired the faithful Jung to begin his journey in the first place. It is your continual embarrassing of the church, Pope Francis, that compelled the people of the world to seek reformation or outright schism. I pray there comes a day when you practice what you preach, and you are informed of the teachings of Christ. When that day comes you will end your disastrous wars of conquest and rule as a non-secular ruler. You will end your centuries long inquisition that has murdered millions of Christians to meet your agenda. You will cease harboring fanatic warriors who seek to spill the blood of your fellow man.

Until that day, you cannot expect there to be no resistance to your tyranny, and for groups from all across the religious spectrum to speak out, and should they not be heard, then violence becomes in their mind necessary. Let the alleged plot be a wake up call, that if the Church does not reform, it will be the death of both Jungist and Catholic faiths, and the utter destruction of Europe as a whole, and the diminishing of all of us for the sake of achieving your egotistical reign. Thus, we Jungists continue to condemn all acts of violence from either side, but we cannot act surprised that when the Pope throws the first stone a thousand times, that one might bounce back in return and graze them.

Ultimately, with all these various opinions floating around, the government would issue a statement that the Pope’s decree that, “Jungism must be declared as dangerous to the peace and all Jungists in their lands must be destroyed, or they can also end being targeted by these killers and liars that call themselves Christians.” must be repealed, if to remain in good conscience. The Catholic Church of Germany would likewise issue that the Pope should apologize for such an unchristian outburst.

Regardless of the religious leanings of the group, the Holy Roman Emperor, Jaromir I, persecuted it nonetheless. He would make a statement that no foreign intervention against German states would be tolerated. He noted the earlier “crusade” against Thuringia around the election of Henry IX, and how it had been detrimental to the Empire and Christianity as a whole, and ironically a major catalyst in creating Jungism in the first place. Therefore the Emperor responded that he would not allow the Pope’s inquisitors, soldiers, etc., to invade any part of the Empire, as he personally would be enforcing religious standards, and that any sudden crusader army invading would be met as an attack on the Empire. Nonetheless the Emperor demanded many concessions from the Hessians in the form of cooperation, expecting that radicals of any denomination would be persecuted.

With religious tensions rising once again in Germany, at Duke of Saxony Wolfgang's insistence, his Catholic younger brother the Duke of Saxe-Jessen, Edmund, travelled to Hesse to conduct his own investigation of the Black Hand. After interviewing a large number of people involved, Edmund concluded that the original investigation by the German Catholic authorities led by Martin Breuer were correct and that the Black Hand is an ultra-Catholic paramilitary group. Peter Meise violently denounced the Pope, and founded a society known as ANTICA, which was openly anti-Catholic and supports violence.

Peter Meise

Peter Meise, the fanatic Anabaptist.

Peter Meise II, self-proclaimed Bishop of Finland, Patriarch of the Eastern Jungist Church, as well as founder and leader of the Anti-Catholic League (ANTICA), declared passionately from somewhere in Finland, that the Pope must be wiped from the face of the Earth. He uttered the now-famous line, addressed to the common man:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves.

He urged the people of the world to go on a "crusade against the Antichrist, to prop up his head beside the Pike's" (the Pike referring poetically to the late Pope Lucius).

This article is part of Merveilles des Morte.