But the governor started to act strangely, in several ways. First – this would attract little attention in New York City now, but was remarkable three centuries ago – Cornbury sometimes became, after drinking heavily, a cross-dresser. William Smith, an eighteenth-century New Yorker, reported that “It was not uncommon for him to dress himself in a woman’s habit, and then to patrol the fort…” One account noted “general dismay after the queen’s kinsman arrived and began marching upon the ramparts in women’s clothes… [He drew] a world of spectators about him and consequently as many censures for exposing himself in such a manner on all the great Holidays and even in an hour or two after going to the ‘Communion.’” Manhattanites event hen could tolerate some weirdness, but a transvestite governor was too much.
Source:
Olasky, Marvin. “Dual Governments.” Fighting for Liberty and Virtue: Political and Cultural Wars in Eighteenth-Century America. Crossway Books, 1995. 22-3. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Michael G. Kammen, Colonial New York: A History (New York: Scribner’s, 1975), 156.
Further Reading:
Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, styled Viscount Cornbury between 1674 and 1709
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