Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and
Viscount Cornbury is perhaps the most maligned royal governor that the colony
of New York ever had. His reign from 1702 to 1708 was marked with greed,
bribery and rampant misuse of public funds. Yet the thing he is most remembered
for is this:
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| Lord Cornbury as remembered by history. If I was more tech savvy Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" would be playing right now. |
That’s right. If one was to believe the
rumors then Lord Cornbury really liked to dress in women’s clothes. Some
historians believe that
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| Edward Hyde as he probably wanted to be remembered |
Cornbury truly did parade around New York in full
gowns. Other historians believe this was a started to discredit the governor by
his political rivals in New York, chief among them Robert Livingston, 1st
Lord of Livingston Manor.
Livingston had been a fan of Cornbury’s
when he first arrived in the colony, writing “My Lord is Extrem hearty to
redresse all grievances, we must reckon it a duble mercy that God has been
pleased to send him at this juncture.”[i]
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| Robert Livingston certainly had a way with words |
Cornbury soon lost Livingston’s support
though. After a harrowing trip to England that involved being briefly seized by
French privateers and set adrift, Livingston spent about three years getting
his accounts settled and getting his offices confirmed by the Queen. When he
returned home in 1706 he found that the colonists were united against Cornbury
who had been badly mismanaging the colony. When Livingston presented his
commission as Secretary for Indian Affairs to Cornbury, Cornbury refused to
recognize it despite Queen Anne’s signature. Cornbury apparently preferred to
keep the money due to Livingston for his own use.[ii]
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| William Lowndes: this has nothing to do with Cornbury but this guy had at least 25 kids. So yeah... |
In June of 1707 Robert Livingston wrote to
William Lowndes of the Treasury;
“Tis
said he is wholly addicted to his pleasure…his dressing himself in womens
cloths commonly [every] morning is so unaccountable that if hundreds of
spectators did not daily see him it would be incredible.”[iii]
Livingston's
letter was the first in a series of letters to officials in England describing
Cornbury’s odd habit. Later that year Lewis Morris, ancestor of Chancellor Robert
R. Livingston’s good friend Gouverneur Morris and owner of the Morrisania
estate in the Bronx wrote his own letter. It said:
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| Lewis Morris; helped ruined Cornbury over New Jersey. We might need to question his judgement. |
“The
scandal of his life is…he rarely fails at being dresst in Women’s cloaths every
day, and almost half his time is spent that way, and seldome misses it on
Sacrament day, was in that garb when his dead Lady was carried out of the Fort,
and this not privately but in face of the sun and in sight of the Town. But
I’ll not enter into his Privacies, his Publick Vices are scandalous enough.”
In
1709 Morris wrote about Cornbury again:
“...that
is his dressing publiqly in womans cloaths Every day and putting a stop to all
publique business while he is pleasing himself with that peculiar but
detestable magot.”[iv]
It
should be noted that Morris was also an opponent of Cornbury’s. Cornbury had
suspended Morris from the New Jersey provincial council. Morris was not
reinstated until Cornbury was done as governor.
The
last about the governor’s dressing habits came from the pen of Elias Neau, a
Huguenot refugee turned merchant and catechist. Neau wrote:
“My
Lord Cornbury has and dos still make use of an unfortunate Custom of dressing
himself in womens cloaths and of exposing himself in that Garb on the Ramparts
to the view of the public; in that dress he draws a world of Spectators about
him and consequently as many Censures, especially for the exposing himself in
such a manner all the great Holy days and even in an hour or two after going to
the communion.”
Neau
went one step further than the other writers and commented on Cornbury’s style
as well:
“I
am assured that he continues to dress himself in women’s cloths, but now tis
after the Dutch Manner.”[v]
Not
only was Cornbury dressing like a woman but he was dressing like a Dutch woman,
not even a good English woman!
Historian Patricia Bonomi assures us
that the rumor of Cornbury’s cross dressing did not gain much traction in
England or elsewhere in the colonies, yet some people did hear of it. A
merchant from Boston wrote to an associate in New York;
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| Baron von Bothmer: Liked to imagine Cornury in drag. |
“Muliebri Veste uti (women’s clothing), is instanced in as against the Law of
Nature. It has been reported that a certain Gentleman at N. York used to
practice that abomination. I should be glad to know the certainty of it.”[vi]
Several
years later Hanoverian diplomat Baron von Bothmer wrote that he had heard that
Cornbury “thought it was necessary for him, in order to represent her Majesty,
to dress himself as a woman.”[vii]
So it is at least possible that a
royal governor of New York dressed like a woman. Perhaps he enjoyed it or, as
Bothmer suggested, perhaps he took his job representing Queen Anne in the
colonies a little too seriously. It is also possible that he was just an
unpleasant man brought down in part by the combined efforts of Robert
Livingston and a few other colonists whom he had offended. Either way Cornbury
was replaced by John Lovelace, 4th Baron Lovelace in 1708. Cornbury
returned to England, spent some time in debtors’ prison and was briefly an
envoy to the court of Hanover. He died in 1723.
[i]
Bonomi, Patricia U. The Lord Cornbury
Scandal p59
[ii]
Leder, Lawrence H. Robert Livingston p
200-202
[iii]
Bonomi The Lord Cornbury Scandal p
158
[iv]
Bonomi The Lord Cornbury Scandal p160
[v]
Bonomi The Lord Cornbury Scandal p
161.
[vi]
Bonomi The Lord Cornbury Scandal p
162
[vii]
Bonomi The Lord Cornbury Scandal p 17
