Rye House Plot

Rye House Plot, 1683, conspiracy to assassinate Charles II of England and his brother James, duke of York (later James II), as they passed by Rumbold's Rye House in Hertfordshire on the road from Newmarket to London. However, the king did not make the journey on the expected day; the plot, an offshoot of earlier insurrection plots hatched by the 1st earl of Shaftesbury, was revealed. Although the actual conspirators were only minor figures, the great Whig leaders Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney were executed on flimsy evidence of guilt by association.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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