Rye House Plot Rye House Plot The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother (and heir to the throne) James, Duke of York. The royal party went from Westminster to Newmarket to see horse races and were expected to make the return journey on 1 April 1683, but because there was a major fire in Newmarket on 22 March (which destroyed half the town), the races were cancelled, and the King and the Duke returned to London early. As a result, the planned attack never took place. Historians vary in their assessment
A Ballad upon the Popish Plot Santa Barbara, which are part of the James Ludovic Lindsay Crawford collection at the National Library of Scotland, indicate in the subtitle that the author is "a lady of quality." However, the compilers of "The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints" have identified John Gadbury (1627–1704), an English astrologer, almanac writer, and otherwise prolific author, as the composer of several versions of the ballad held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Gadbury, a High Tory and Catholic convert, had been wrongfully imprisoned at the time of the Plot. However, Yale librarian and literary cataloger Donald Wing has attributed the ballad