numbers.” Behind the long building was an outer courtyard, into which a considerable body of horse and foot could be drawn up unperceived from the road, “whence they might easily issue out at the same time into each end of the narrow lane.”[62] The Rye House, affording such excellent opportunities, was accordingly fixed upon as the rendezvous for “those who were to be actors in the fact.” Arms and ammunition, covered with oysters, were to be taken up the river Ware by watermen in the secret of the conspiracy, and landed at the farm; men were to ride down from London at night in small detachments, so as to escape observation, and then hide themselves in the outbuildings around the holding; the servants of the farm, on the day appointed for the “taking off” of the King and his brother, were to be sent out of the way and despatched to market; whilst the anything but hen-pecked maltster promised, when the critical moment came, “to lock Mrs. Rumbald upstairs.”[63] So far all was satisfactorily arranged as to the assembling of the conspirators. The next question that had to be determined was as to the execution of the infamous design. This was soon arranged. The plotters had ascertained the exact hour the King and the Duke of York were to quit Newmarket; a brief calculation was sufficient for them therefore to arrive at the hour when the royal coach would be driven past the road running under the windows of the Rye House; still, to make matters more sure, a couple of watchers were to be stationed in the tower of the farm, and give the signal when the quarry was in view. Upon the approach of the coach with its attendant equerries, the men especially selected for the immediate work of assassination were to steal out of their cover and hide themselves behind the wall which ran along the road; the wall was to be provided with convenient loopholes, and the conspirators were to stand with their muskets ready. “When his Majesty’s coach should come over against the wall, three or four of those behind it were to shoot at the postilion and the horses; if the horses should not drop then, there were to be two men with an empty cart in the lane near the place, who in the habit of laborers should run the cart athwart the lane and so stop the horses. Besides those that were to shoot the postilion and the horses, there were several appointed to shoot into the coach where his Majesty was to be, and others to shoot at the guards that should be attending the coach.” The fell work accomplished, the farm with its outbuildings was to be at once vacated, the conspirators were to jump into their saddles, and make their way to London by the Hackney Marshes as fast as their horses could lay to the ground. If this plan was adopted, it was hoped “they might get to London as soon as the news could.”[64]