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.

Closely involved with radical politics, he was implicated in the 1683 Rye House Plot, an alleged plan to assassinate Charles II of England and his brother James.

They helped organise the 1680 'Great Petition' demanding the recall of Parliament, signed by 18,000 people, including John Ayloffe, Richard Nelthorpe and Robert Ferguson.

In his speech from the scaffold in 1685, Rumbold denied any intention of murdering the king, but after warrants for his arrest were issued in June, he escaped to the Dutch Republic.

The most prominent were Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, convicted of treason in 1681, and Charles' illegitimate son, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, exiled for his involvement in the Rye House Plot.

[1] Unfortunately, Argyll's Rising failed to attract significant support, and was fatally compromised by divisions among the rebel leadership, Rumbold being one of the few to emerge with any credit.

[1] Rumbold made his own defiant declaration on the scaffold: This is a deluded generation, veiled in ignorance, that though popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it; though I am sure that there was no man born marked by God above another; for none comes into this world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him...[8]This echoed words published thirty-seven years earlier by Harris in Mecurius Militaris; 'Children of kings are born with crowns upon their heads, and the people with saddles upon their backs.

The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God.