Eight surviving Gunpowder Plot conspirators were executed in January 1606.
The executions took place after the plot was uncovered and the conspirators were tried for high treason. The first group, including Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes and Guy Fawkes, was executed in Westminster on 31 January 1606. The remaining four were executed the following day.
The sentence was hanging, drawing and quartering, the severe punishment traditionally prescribed for male traitors. Fawkes avoided the full process after climbing or falling from the scaffold and breaking his neck, but his body was still quartered.
The figure eight refers to surviving plotters who were captured, tried and executed. Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy and several others had already died in the gunfight at Holbeche House, while Francis Tresham died in prison.