Rye House Plot
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Rye House Plot. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in English history, a conspiracy immediate object of which was to assas- , planned in 1683, the sinate Charles II. Duke of York (afterward James II.), as and his brother, the they returned from the Newmarket races. This plan was to have been executed on the road to London, near a farm called Rye House, belonging to one of the conspirators named Rumbold; but it was frustrated by the king and his brother happening to return from Newmarket earlier than was expected. The detection of the plot led to the arrest, on a charge of high treason, of Lords William Russell, Essex, and Algernon Sidney, who were in no way connected with it. Essex put an end to his own life in the Tower, while Russell and Sidney were beheaded, as also Lieutenant-Colonel Walcot, one of the real contrivers of the plot.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in English history, an attempt to assassinate Charles II and his brother the Duke of York. The ill-contrived plan was arranged by a lot of low fellows. It was to be put into effect at a farm known as the Rye-House, belonging to one of their number, as the king and his brother were returning from the Newmarket races. The plot was frustrated by the return of the royal party earlier than was anticipated. Some inkling of the conspiracy leaked out and numerous executions followed. Three noblemen, Lord William Russell, Lord Essex, and Algernon Sidney, who were in all probability totally ignorant of the plot, became involved in the general charges which followed and were executed. See Gunpowder Plot
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The events themselves are settled, but the judgement on them has shifted. Both accounts insist the condemned peers were "in no way connected" with the plot; historians now distinguish two overlapping conspiracies of 1683 — Richard Rumbold's crude scheme to ambush Charles II and the Duke of York near his Rye House at Hoddesdon, and a separate plan for armed insurrection discussed by a group of Whig grandees including Monmouth, Russell, Essex and Algernon Sidney. On that reading Russell and Sidney were innocent of the assassination but not of plotting rebellion, and their trials are remembered less as cases of mistaken identity than as political show trials, Sidney being convicted partly on his own unpublished manuscript of the Discourses Concerning Government. Neither entry mentions the sequel: after the Revolution of 1688 Parliament reversed the attainders, and the two men were rehabilitated as Whig martyrs, which is largely why 19th-century writers were so sure of their innocence.
Written for this edition, 2026.