I recently read about a Lord Cornbury, appointed governor of New York in 1701, who was a transvestite. Can you verify this? –James Hickok
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First the lurid details. From Henry Moscow’s The Book of New York Firsts (1995): “One night during the early 1700s, a constable working for the British colony of New York arrested what he presumed was a prostitute walking along Broadway. When the suspect was brought back to the stockade, however, it was discovered that he had actually taken into custody the colonial governor, who enjoyed taking evening strolls in his wife’s clothes….In addition to women’s clothing, which he enjoyed wearing while walking the parapets of the British fort he commanded, [Lord Cornbury] also had a fetish for ears, and made it a point of telling visitors to official state functions that they were free to fondle those of his wife….
“After being in power for a while Lord Cornbury’s marriage started to sour. Since he gave Mrs. Hyde no spending money, she took to ‘borrowing’ clothing and other items from other aristocratic ladies, and then not returning them. He himself ran up considerable debts, and was finally removed from office by Queen Anne in 1708. Now a regular citizen, he was thrown into debtors’ prison until receiving a sizable inheritance from his father’s estate, which enabled him to buy his way out of jail and return to England, where he served in the House of Lords.”
Cornbury may not have been the world’s best governor (although Professor Bonomi claims he was nowhere near as bad as he’s been made out). But it seems pretty clear the allegations about cross-dressing were just scurrilous rumor, made believable by the passage of time. Nobody today believes the story about Richard Gere and the gerbil, but God knows what they’ll be saying about him in 200 years.
