ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME II, PART I


[v.02 p.0001]

ANDROS, SIR EDMUND (1637-1714), English colonial governor in America,
was born in London on the 6th of December 1637, son of Amice Andros,
an adherent of Charles I., and the royal bailiff of the island of
Guernsey. He served for a short time in the army of Prince Henry of
Nassau, and in 1660-1662 was gentleman in ordinary to the queen of
Bohemia (Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I. of England). He then
served against the Dutch, and in 1672 was commissioned major in
what is said to have been the first English regiment armed with the
bayonet. In 1674 he became, by the appointment of the duke of York
(later James II.), governor of New York and the Jerseys, though his
jurisdiction over the Jerseys was disputed, and until his recall in
1681 to meet an unfounded charge of dishonesty and favouritism in
the collection of the revenues, he proved himself to be a capable
administrator, whose imperious disposition, however, rendered him
somewhat unpopular among the colonists. During a visit to England in
1678 he was knighted. In 1686 he became governor, with Boston as his
capital, of the "Dominion of New England," into which Massachusetts
(including Maine), Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New
Hampshire were consolidated, and in 1688 his jurisdiction was extended
over New York and the Jerseys. But his vexatious interference with
colonial rights and customs aroused the keenest resentment, and on the
18th of April 1689, soon after news of the arrival of William, prince