Tuesday, August 17, 2004
NEWS FLASH: NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR A PERVERT
Edward Hyde (Lord Cornbury)
He became Governor of New York and New Jersey from 1701 to 1708, in which position he earned a very foul repute. It is said that his character and conduct were equally abhorred in both hemispheres. He was prisoner for debt at the time of his father's death.
Cornbury came to be regarded in the historical literature as a moral profligate, sunk in corruption: possibly the worst governor Britain ever imposed on an American colony. The early accounts claim he took bribes and plundered the public treasury. Nineteenth century historian George Bancroft said that Cornbury illustrated the worst form of the English aristocracy's "arrogance, joined to intellectual imbecility".
Later historians characterize him as a "degenerate and pervert who is said to have spent half of his time dressed in women's clothes", a "fop and a wastrel". He is said to have delivered a "flowery panegyric on his wife's ears" after which he invited every gentleman present to feel precisely how shell-like they were; to have misappropriated £1500 meant for the defense of New York Harbor, and, scandalously, to have dressed in women's clothing and lurked "behind trees to pounce, shrieking with laughter, on his victims".
(Taken, out of context, from Wikipedia)
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Edward Hyde (Lord Cornbury)
He became Governor of New York and New Jersey from 1701 to 1708, in which position he earned a very foul repute. It is said that his character and conduct were equally abhorred in both hemispheres. He was prisoner for debt at the time of his father's death.
Cornbury came to be regarded in the historical literature as a moral profligate, sunk in corruption: possibly the worst governor Britain ever imposed on an American colony. The early accounts claim he took bribes and plundered the public treasury. Nineteenth century historian George Bancroft said that Cornbury illustrated the worst form of the English aristocracy's "arrogance, joined to intellectual imbecility".
Later historians characterize him as a "degenerate and pervert who is said to have spent half of his time dressed in women's clothes", a "fop and a wastrel". He is said to have delivered a "flowery panegyric on his wife's ears" after which he invited every gentleman present to feel precisely how shell-like they were; to have misappropriated £1500 meant for the defense of New York Harbor, and, scandalously, to have dressed in women's clothing and lurked "behind trees to pounce, shrieking with laughter, on his victims".
(Taken, out of context, from Wikipedia)
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