Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon (28 November 1661 – 31 March 1723), styled Viscount Cornbury between 1674 and 1709, was an English Army officer, politician and colonial administrator.

He was propelled into the forefront of English politics when he and part of his army defected from the Catholic King James II to support the newly arrived Protestant contender, William III of Orange.

The same year Charles II regained the throne, Clarendon's daughter, Anne Hyde (1637–1671), married the new king's younger brother & heir, James, Duke of York.

[4] After graduation, Lord Cornbury joined the elite Royal Regiment of Dragoons under the command of John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough.

[5] Cornbury first rose to prominence later that year, due to a struggle for the throne set in motion by King Charles II's death on 6 February 1685.

[6] Cornbury played a crucial role in the Glorious Rebellion, becoming the first English officer to defect to the invading William III of Orange.

A small skirmish was fought at Sherborne on 20 November, but shortly thereafter Lord Cornbury defected to William's side, bringing many of his dragoons with him.

[16] When Lord Cornbury was appointed governor, he was also made "captain-general of all forces by sea and land" for all colonies north of Virginia.

[18][19][20][21] In August 1703,[citation needed] the newly formed Province of New Jersey was added to Cornbury's responsibilities by Queen Anne.

[22] The governor immediately dismissed Colonel Wolfgang William Römer, the imperial engineer who had responsibility for maintaining the forts.

He then assumed direct oversight over a vast project to construct a large fortress ringed with stone ramparts (later named Fort Frederick).

[25] Fears of attack from the sea were realised on 26 July 1706, when the French 16-gun brig Queen Anne suddenly appeared off Sandy Hook at the harbour entrance.

He was shocked to discover that public funds had been used to build and maintain a Presbyterian church in the village of Jamaica on Long Island.

High Tories like Cornbury rallied to the cry of "The Church in Danger" – the supposed threat posed by Whigs and Nonconformists.

[41][42] Columbia University denies having ties to the former governor:[43] Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury (1661–1723), could very well have been known as the pre-founder of King's College.

During the second half of Cornbury's term, the streets and sidewalks were paved with cobblestone (in the area around Trinity Church), fire-buckets were positioned throughout the town, and a fledgling fire department was created with two hooks and eight ladders.

His father's death elevated him to the Peerage, and with it, Parliamentary immunity against civil actions, thus rescuing him from debtors' prison (31 Oct 1709).

[52] Although a member of Harley's cabinet, Cornbury was able to remain untainted by the series of scandals that rocked the Tory leadership during this period: His old mentor, the Duke of Marlborough was removed from his place as Captain-General (29 December 1711), charged with bribery and embezzlement.

Several "High Tories" were implicated in the Jacobite rising of 1715, which supported James Francis Edward Stuart as the pretender to the throne.

[53] Cornbury was apparently not linked to Robert Harley (1st Earl of Oxford)'s South Seas Bubble, which caused the ruin and bankruptcy of many aristocrats and office holders in 1720–1721.

[54][citation needed] Amid political turmoil, Queen Anne sent Cornbury as a replacement for Harley's emissary to her successor, George, Elector of Hannover (1660–1727; King 1714–1727).

[55] Once King George I assumed the British throne following the Hanoverian Succession, his animosity toward the Tories became apparent, and Cornbury lost his position as an emissary.

[57] Hyde has maintained a scandalous reputation for much of history, known for being highly corrupt and being an easy caricature of the wrongs and incompetence that American colonists perceived came as a result of being under British colonial rule.

[59] The only modern biography that focuses solely on Hyde was written by New York University professor Patricia Bonomi in 1998 and takes a more nuanced view of Cornbury.

[62] Bonomi further states that the contemporary descriptions of Cornbury do not comport with his being a transvestite, either homosexual or heterosexual, but that the sporadic nature of his alleged cross-dressing would place him at the more heterosexual end of the "broad middle category of transvestites", especially because the "evidence regarding Cornbury's personal life is devoid of any of the traits of transgenderism or transexualism that occupy the rest of this category."

She writes that it is possible to speculate that his attachment to "the military and to manly honor was a way of compensating for an incompletely developed masculine identity."

[63] Bonomi concludes that Lord Cornbury's crossdressing was invented by his political enemies[page needed] to "assassinate" his character.

The criticisms can be traced to a complaint, written in the spring of 1706, to the newly appointed Whig ministry by Lewis Morris (1671–1746), and Samuel Jennings (about 1660–1708) in behalf of the New Jersey Assembly.

I saw a picture of him at Sir Herbert Packington's in Worcestershire, in a gown, stays, tucker, long ruffles, and cap....Lord Cornbury eloped with Katherine O'Brien, the 8th Baroness Clifton on 10 July 1685.

An uncaptioned 18th-century portrait that hangs in the New-York Historical Society has been commonly believed to be Governor Cornbury wearing a dress.