Description:

Colonial New York 0 - 0 French Huguenot 1702 New York document signed by the crazed Governor, Lord Cornbury, cousin of Queen Anne.

Single page document signed, Last Will and Testament, 8.5" x 13" inlaid to another page. Extensively penned to the front with the verso containing the witness statement signed by Edward Viscount Cornbury as "Cornbury", and dated "New York December 4, 1702". Additionally signed to the recto by Giles Gaudineau as 'Giles Gaudineau". Toned, with expected folds. Red wax seal present. Remarkably well preserved. Near fine.

Not for the collector of the mundane, this seeming simple last will and testament of Jacob Rattier includes an intriguing and colorful cast of characters. Mariner Jacob Rattier, one of the original Huguenots who died just shortly after he executed his last will and testament, Giles Gaudineau, a local early French New York doctor who additionally witnessed the execution of wills, and the local 'new man in town'-who graced the document with his large signature on the Verso- Lord Cornbury, the then newly appointed governor of New York and New Jersey, and the infamous cousin of Queen Anne.

Cornbury just arrived on the scene in Manhattan on May 2, 1702 and originally he was ebulliently received by the citizenry. This was likely the high point of his six and a half years in office. Among the allegations of corruption that would soon dog him: accepting bribes from crooked Jersey officials, spending extravagant sums on candles and firewood for two Colonial garrisons, building a "pleasure house" on Governors Island, and running up colossal personal debts. But rumors of financial improprieties alone wouldn't have led mythologizers to dub Cornbury "a degenerate and a pervert" and "quite possibly the worst governor in the history of the empire." Such bile had more to do with his personal habits, particularly what is said to have been his signature sartorial flourish. He opened up a session of the New York Assembly dressed as his cousin Queen Anne. "You are very stupid not to see the propriety of it," he scolded the legislators.

Historians have painted an unkind picture of this cousin of Queen Anne. He has been accused of everything from bigotry to raiding the public treasury. But by far the greatest blot on the Cornbury escutcheon -- indeed the cornerstone on which his infamous reputation is founded -- is the charge that he dressed ''publiqly in womans Cloaths Every day.'' It was even reported that this colorful personality would don a dress, hide behind a tree, and startle passersby, while shrieking with laughter. A celebrated portrait, said to be of Cornbury in woman's attire, hangs today in the New-York Historical Society.

A document with the scarce signature of perhaps the most colorful New York governor whose persona still echoes 300 years later.

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