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Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Blog

Gov­er­nors Island Scan­dal Cir­ca 1702: Eng­lish King Appoints Drag Queen

Apr 5, 2012 4:34 pm
[cap­tion id=“attachment_4993” align=“aligncenter” width=“224” caption=“Painting of Gov­er­nors Island’s Lord Corn­bury, in drag (paint­ing from the New York His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety)”][/​caption] This week’s New York mag­a­zine traces many New York City scan­dals, some back cen­turies. One of the ear­li­est scan­dals involved Gov­er­nors Island and Lord Corn­bury, who was appoint­ed by the King of Eng­land as a new Gov­er­nor of New York and New Jer­sey in 1702. Lord Corn­bury even­tu­al­ly became known as ​“quite pos­si­bly the worst gov­er­nor in the his­to­ry of the empire” due to his extrav­a­gant spend­ing habits, run­ning up mas­sive debts and his pen­chant for wear­ing wom­en’s clothes. In fact, he even opened a ses­sion of the New York assem­bly dressed as his cousin, Queen Anne. He only last­ed as Gov­er­nor for six and a half years before being uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly fired and lat­er imprisoned.
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