The Babington Plot was a plan in 1586 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, a Protestant, and put Mary, Queen of Scots, her Roman Catholic cousin, on the English throne. It led to Mary's execution, a result of a letter sent by Mary in which she consented to the assassination of Elizabeth.
George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, PC, also known as "the Hanging Judge", was a Welsh judge. He became notable during the reign of King James II, rising to the position of Lord Chancellor. His conduct as a judge was to enforce royal policy, resulting in an historical reputation for severity and bias.
The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials started at Winchester on 25 August 1685 in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which ended the Monmouth Rebellion in England.
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom was used from ancient times until the second half of the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964, before capital punishment was suspended for murder in 1965 and finally abolished for murder in 1969. Although unused, the death penalty remained a legally defined punishment for certain offences such as treason until it was completely abolished in 1998. In 2004 the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom, prohibiting the restoration of the death penalty for as long as the UK is a party to the convention.
The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother 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, the races were cancelled, and the King and the Duke returned to London early. As a result, the planned attack never took place.
The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the executions of at least 22 men and precipitated the Exclusion Bill Crisis. Eventually Oates's intricate web of accusations fell apart, leading to his arrest and conviction for perjury.
Lady Alice Lisle, commonly known as Alicia Lisle or Dame Alice Lyle, was a landed lady of the English county of Hampshire, who was executed for harbouring fugitives after the defeat of the Monmouth Rebellion at the Battle of Sedgemoor. While she seems to have leaned to Royalism, she combined this with a decided sympathy for religious dissent. She is known to history as Lady Lisle although she has no claim to the title; her husband was a member of the "Other House" created by Oliver Cromwell and "titles" deriving from that fact were often used after the Restoration.
Anthony Babington was an English gentleman convicted of plotting the assassination of Elizabeth I of England and conspiring with the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots. The "Babington Plot" and Mary's involvement in it were the basis of the treason charges against her which led to her execution. He was a member of the Babington family.
Catherine Murphy was an English counterfeiter, the last woman in England to be officially burned at the stake.
Elizabeth Jeffries was an English woman executed for murder.
Events from the year 1685 in England. This year sees a change of monarch.
Richard Rumbold (1622–1685) was a Parliamentarian soldier and political radical, exiled for his role in the 1683 Rye House Plot and later executed for taking part in the 1685 Argyll's Rising.
Elizabeth Cellier, flourished 1668–1688, London, England, was a notable Catholic midwife in seventeenth-century England. She stood trial for treason in 1680 for her alleged part in the "Meal-Tub Plot" against the future James II but was acquitted. She later became a pamphleteer and made attempts to advance the field of midwifery.
To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352, although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
Henry Cornish was a London alderman, executed in the reign of James II of England.
Rachel, Lady Russell was an English noblewoman, heiress, and author. Her second husband was William, Lord Russell, who was implicated in the Rye House Plot and later executed. A collection of the many letters she wrote to her husband and other distinguished men was published in 1773.
In England, burning was a legal punishment inflicted on women found guilty of high treason, petty treason and heresy. Over a period of several centuries, female convicts were publicly burnt at the stake, sometimes alive, for a range of activities including coining and mariticide.
Lady Henrietta Berkeley was an English aristocrat notorious for having an affair with her elder sister's husband. It began in 1681 when Berkeley was not yet an adult and was discovered by her mother the following year. Berkeley was removed to the family seat at Epsom then escaped and went into hiding in lodging houses in London, under the protection of her lover. Her father, George Berkeley, 1st Earl of Berkeley, decided to prosecute her lover, Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville, in a trial which became a sensation in 1682.
Ann Smith was an English political activist. A devout Baptist, she and her family sheltered the 9th Earl of Argyll when he was in hiding in London and fled with him to the Spanish Netherlands in 1683. She lived with her husband in Utrecht and following his death funded Argyll's Rising in Scotland and the contemporaneous Monmouth Rebellion in England. She hosted fellow conspirator Elizabeth Gaunt in Amsterdam and received a royal pardon for her activism in 1686, after which time records of her life cease.
