BEST-selling Horrible Histories author Terry Deary has sprung to the defence of one of York's most notorious sons.

He said St Peter's School old boy Guy Fawkes was a hero and a freedom-fighter who had been misrepresented by history.

Instead of burning a Guy on your bonfire, he says, you should be burning a dummy of "cruel King James 1".

Mr Deary says Fawkes and his co-conspirators were portrayed by King James 1 as ruthless and evil assassins.

Fawkes was arrested in a cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament, only hours before he was to blow up both it and King James.

But in fact, says Mr Deary, the king had known about the 1605 plot for a week.

"The king was never in danger," he says. "He was just waiting for the night of November 4 to arrive so Guy Fawkes could be arrested with the powder - it made a better story. It was such a good story it is still told nearly 400 years later. James could now say, 'See how these Catholics hate me! We must crush these ruthless and evil people'.

"Of course, the cruellest and most ruthless killers were the king and his henchmen. For 20 years they had been torturing and murdering people for the crime of being Catholics. Guy Fawkes and the plotters wanted to strike. But their struggles for freedom ended in torture and death. "

Evidence published today by boffins at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth showed that if Guy Fawkes had succeeded with the plot he would have devastated much of central London as well as blowing the palace sky-high.

Updated: 10:47 Wednesday, November 05, 2003