He fled from England under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot
One of the interesting facts about John Locke you should know is that he fled from England under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot. Despite the fact that there is little evidence to support it, Locke went to the Netherlands in 1683 while being heavily suspected of being implicated in the Rye House Plot. The Rye House Plot of 1683 was an attempt to assassinate James, Duke of York, the brother and heir apparent of King Charles II of England. The royal party traveled from Westminster to Newmarket to watch horse races, and they were scheduled to return on 1 April 1683. However, the races were postponed because of a significant fire in Newmarket on March 22 (which destroyed half of the town), so the King and the Duke returned to London earlier than planned. As a result, the intended attack was thwarted.
According to the philosopher and author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, during Locke's five years in Holland, he made his friends among the same open-minded Protestant dissenters as Spinoza's small circle of devoted confidants. In Amsterdam, Locke probably definitely came into contact with folks who discussed the ideologies of that outlaw Jew who insisted on defining himself only via his religion of reason. She claims that while Locke's strong empiricist tendencies would have prevented him from reading a lofty metaphysical work like Spinoza's Ethics, he was nonetheless incredibly open to the rationalist's ideas, especially his well-reasoned defense of political and religious tolerance and the necessity of the separation of church and state. Locke had time to write again while in the Netherlands, and he spent a lot of time penning the Letter on Toleration and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
After the Glorious Revolution, Locke finally made his way back home. In 1688, Locke returned to England with Mary II. Upon his return from exile, Locke published most of his works, including the previously mentioned Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Two Treatises of Government, and A Letter Concerning Toleration. Lady Masham, a personal friend of Locke's, invited him to visit her at Otes, the Mashams' Essex country estate. He experienced intermittent health due to asthma episodes during that time, yet he nonetheless rose to the status of intellectual hero for the Whigs. He had conversations with people like John Dryden and Isaac Newton during this time.
