Sir Edmund Andros (6 December 1637 – 24 February 1714) was an English colonial administrator in North America. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served as governor of the provinces of New York, East and West Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.
Before his service in North America, he served as Bailiff of Guernsey. His tenure in New England was authoritarian and turbulent, as his views were decidedly pro-Anglican, a negative quality in a region home to many Puritans. His actions in New England resulted in his overthrow during the 1689 Boston revolt.
Andros was considered to have been a more effective governor in New York and Virginia, although he became the enemy of prominent figures in both colonies, many of whom worked to remove him from office. Despite these enmities, he managed to negotiate several treaties of the Covenant Chain with the Iroquois, establishing a long-lived peace involving the colonies and other tribes that interacted with that confederacy. His actions and governance generally followed the instructions he was given upon appointment to office, and he received approbation from the monarchs and governments that appointed him.
Andros was recalled to England from Virginia in 1698, and resumed the title of Bailiff of Guernsey. Although he no longer resided entirely on Guernsey, he was appointed lieutenant governor of the island, and served in this position for four years. Andros died in 1714.
Andros was born in London on 6 December 1637. Amice Andros, his father, was Bailiff of Guernsey and a staunch supporter of Charles I. His mother was Elizabeth Stone, whose sister was a courtier to the king's sister, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia. Although it has been claimed that Andros was present at the surrender in 1651 of Guernsey's Castle Cornet, the last royalist stronghold to surrender in the English Civil War, there is no firm evidence to support this. It is possible that he fled Guernsey with his mother in 1645. In 1656, he was apprenticed to his uncle, Sir Robert Stone, captain of a cavalry company. Andros then served in two winter campaigns in Denmark, including the relief of Copenhagen in 1659. As a result of these experiences he gained fluency in French, Swedish, and Dutch.
He remained a firm supporter of the Stuarts while they were in exile. Charles II, after his restoration to the throne, specifically commended the Andros family for its support.
Andros served as a courtier to Elizabeth of Bohemia from 1660 until her death in 1662. In 1671, he married Mary Craven, the daughter of Thomas Craven of Burnsall in the West Riding of Yorkshire (now North Yorkshire), the son of a cousin to the Earl of Craven, one of the queen's closest advisors, and a friend who served as his patron for many years. During the 1660s he served in the English army against the Dutch. He was next commissioned a major in the regiment of Sir Tobias Bridge, which was sent to Barbados in 1666. He returned to England two years later, carrying despatches and letters.
This is a part of the Wikipedia article used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). The full text of the article is here →
