John Ayloffe's writings were characterised by their bitterly anti-French, anti-Irish, anti-Catholic tone, while the Stuarts were constantly compared to tyrants seeking to destroy English liberties.
12 Facts About John Ayloffe
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John Ayloffe was born in Foxley in Wiltshire about 1645; his father John was a younger son of Sir George Ayloffe of Grittenham, Brinkworth, Wiltshire.
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John Ayloffe was a nephew by marriage of Royalist leader, the Earl of Clarendon, whose first wife was a daughter of Sir George John Ayloffe.
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John Ayloffe's motives are disputed; Fountainhall claimed his father spent much of his money serving Charles I during the First English Civil War, but had been given little recompense at the 1660 Restoration.
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John Ayloffe was briefly detained by the doorkeepers, but released on grounds of being insane, or "distracted".
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An active propagandist and versifier, John Ayloffe has been identified as the author of "much of the republican doggerel of the 1670s".
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John Ayloffe was closely involved in the 1679 to 1681 campaign led by Lord Shaftesbury to exclude the Catholic James from succeeding his brother Charles II.
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John Ayloffe later said it was "the most base and cowardlie thing he had ever done in his life", but he was "tired of living".
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John Ayloffe's remains were then displayed on Temple Bar alongside those of Richard Nelthorpe who was executed on the same day in High Holborn having been captured serving with Monmouth.
10.
The official account of his execution, penned by L'Estrange, which depicts a repentant John Ayloffe offering prayers for the King, the people and the Protestant religion, appears so completely inconsistent with all of his recorded opinions and behaviour it is likely propaganda.
11.
The only work definitely attributed to John Ayloffe is a satiric homage to his friend Andrew Marvell.
12.
John Ayloffe has been suggested as possibly connected to "Captain John Ayloffe's Letters", printed in 1701 by Abel Boyer, a Whig publisher.