royal declaration (1 Ergebnisse)

24pp. Sl. dusted; tape repair to tear along upper edge of C2 not affecting text. Bound with numerous blanks into modern quarter calf. ESTC R235528. From the company library of stationers W.H. Smith. This tract, commissioned 'by the Kings Most excellent Majesty, and the Lords of His Majesties most honourable Privy council' is the official Royal response to the ill-fated Rye House Plot of 1683. The account includes details of the conspiracy as well as the names of those implicated, and was to be read in 'all churches and chappels' on September 2 and 9 in order to mark a day of Thanksgiving to celebrate 'the Mercy of God in this great Deliverance'. The Rye House Plot was a Whig plan to assassinate King Charles II along with his brother and heir to the throne, James, Duke of York. According to this account, the plot involved concealing 40 men armed with 'Thirty Carbines with Belts and Swivels, Thirty Cases of Pistols, and Ten Blunderbusses' at Richard Rumbold's home Rye House in Hertfordshire, and attacking the King and his brother on their return to London from the horse races at Newmarket in early April. The plan was foiled even before it began when 'a sudden Fire at Newmarket' led to cancelled races and Charles and James's early return to London. The discovery of the failed plot on 12 June 1683 led to the imprisonment and execution of a number of prominent members of society including Lord William Russell, who was beheaded at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and his cousin Thomas Walcot who was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn Hill.