The discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683 filled L'Estrange with a powerful sense of vindication as several leading Whigs were implicated in an assassination plot against Charles II. His obsession with detecting subliminal messages in print between plotters and earlier assertions of a 'Presbyterian Plot' directed by shadowy cliques finally seemed proven correct. With the Whig faction broken by the Plot's discovery and execution of several prominent Whigs such as William Russell, L'Estrange replaced the "Observator's" Whig interlocuter with the Trimmer, a moderate figure such as George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax who 'trimmed' between the Tory and Whig factions. This represented the culmination of a career-long tendency to attack moderates who craved respectability but were not wholly loyal to the Court and Tory cause. L'Estrange had long feared 'moderate' Presbyterians who enabled extremists and this represented a natural culmination of them.