Thomas Dongan, first Royal Governor of New York
Lately, I have been thinking about the connections between New York and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This may be because I am fascinated by the incompetence of James Stuart on the throne of England and Scotland. This July there are two anniversaries one celebrated; one not that are tied to James II. The first is his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne which is celebrated all over Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. The other is the granting of the charter to Albany in the colony of New York by the Royal Governor Thomas Dongan in 1686. This two events do not seem to be connected at all but in fact they are. They are tied together by two things: religion and James II.
James II was the second son of the ill-fated, beheaded Charles I. When the Stuarts were returned to the throne of England in 1660, James was his brother’s heir. As Duke of York, he was named Admiral of the Fleet and quickly became a naval hero in battles against the Dutch for supremacy of the Caribbean. In 1664, as a result of the successful capture of New Amsterdam by the British, Charles II gave the colony to his brother as a thank you gift. It pays to be the brother of the King! The colony, re-named for York, became his personal property. James sent officials to run the colony and maximize profit.
James, Duke of York as Lord High Admiral
This was no easy task. The newly christened “New York” was a diverse mix of citizens unlike many of the English colonies in North America. The colony had a strong identity with the defeated Dutch. The man sent to accomplish the task was Sir Edmund Andros, who like Pieter Stuyvesant the last Dutch governor, had governing experience in the Caribbean. Andros in the beginning was able to navigate the troubled political waters. But as the English population, especially merchants, grew more powerful they increasingly complained about his governing style. Their cries of corruption led to Andros recall in 1680 by the Duke of York. In 1683, James sent Colonel Thomas Dongan to be the new governor of the colony. This is where religion enters the picture.
Dongan was an Irish Catholic and the brother of the Earl of Limerick. Since the establishment of the Anglican church under Henry VIII it was illegal to be a Roman Catholic in England. Not only was it illegal but due to a variety of ill fated attempts to overthrow the Crown, Catholics were viewed as traitors. So, in 1669, when James, the Duke of York, heir to the throne became a Roman Catholic the government was rocked. As with many converts, James became an outspoken champion for Catholics, further alarming everyone. To the alarm of many when his wife died, James married a Catholic, Mary of Modena raising the fear of a Catholic succession. Many of the religious prohibitions of the 1670s-80s, especially the Test Act of 1673, were aimed specifically at James as heir to the Protestant throne. In 1681, members of Parliament attempted to exclude James from the throne. Dongan’s placement as governor of New York was viewed within this frame work. Parliament was worried about the possible direction of government with James as King of Protestant England.
James believed, like his distant relative Mary Tudor, that God had placed him on the throne of England. What has always intrigued me about James is unlike his brother Charles, he did not seem to get the message from Parliament beheading his father or Parliament putting his brother back on the throne. As king in 1685, he began to place Catholics, many of them Irish, in positions of power.
Here in New York, Dongan had done much the same. He had brought members of the Jesuit order with him and for the first time had a Catholic Mass said in New York. He also placed Catholics in positions of power. Dongan also granted a Charter of Liberties in 1683 recognizing political rights as well as religious liberty for all Christians. To us today, this seems logically but in the 17th century religion and the state were one. In the same year, he issued “Dongan’s Charter” for the city of New York. As with the Revolutionary period, there were letters flying between New York and London about Dongan’s actions. Parliament was beginning to connect the dots and did not like the picture it created.
James’ consolidation of several colonies into the Dominion of New England aroused anger in all of the colonies affected. Thomas Dongan was dismissed and Edmund Andros returned to govern the “super” colony. The new government raised new alarms in Parliament. It was into this tinderbox that the announcement of the Queen’s pregnancy was thrown. Although Mary of Modena had given birth to several children no son had survived so the throne would eventually go to James’ oldest Protestant daughter, Mary. But the announcement sent the various factions in Parliament, amongst them James’ best friend, John Churchill, to conspire to remove him. It is a great what if question: What if Mary of Modena had a girl instead of a son? Like the birth of Elizabeth I, Mary’s son, James would change English history.
His birth triggered the Glorious Revolution, where once again, Parliament removed a Stuart from the throne of England. This time however, it replaced one Stuart with another, James’ Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange. James would flee to France returning to Catholic Ireland to regain his throne. His defeat at the Battle of the Boyne would launch a long history of sectarian violence in Ireland. Here in New York, we would have our own coup removing Andros and replacing him with Jacob Leisler, in the name of King William.
It could be said that the first steps to the coup of 1688 occurred here in New York with the appointment of Thomas Dongan as governor.
Bowery & Canal 