Jacob Milborne (''sometimes'' Milburn) ( – 16 May 1691) was an American clerk living in the

Province of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the U ...

who was an ally, secretary and son-in-law of the rebel

Jacob Leisler Jacob Leisler ( – May 16, 1691) was a German-born colonist who served as a politician in the Province of New York. He gained wealth in New Amsterdam (later New York City) in the fur trade and tobacco business. In what became known as Leisler ...

, served briefly as

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

of the province, and was executed for his part in

Leisler's Rebellion Leisler's Rebellion was an uprising in late-17th century colonial New York in which German American merchant and militia captain Jacob Leisler seized control of the southern portion of the colony and ruled it from 1689 to 1691. The uprising too ...

Early life

Milborne, a member of a radical family of English dissenters, was a son of Rev. Luke Milborne, one of the thirteen "Fanatiks of

East Sheen East Sheen, also known as Sheen, is a suburb in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its long high street has shops, offices, restaurants, cafés, pubs and suburban supermarkets and is also the economic hub for Mortl ...

" (along with former

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional pow ...

, John Ireton). His brother, William Milborne, was a notorious " Fifth Monarchist" (an extreme

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

sect)

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = "Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , es ...

Councilor. On 12 March 1686, his then father-in-law, Samuel Edsall conveyed to Milborne, the easterly part of the remainder of the original 1,872-acre tract, which fronted the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

Career

Between 1686 and 1689, Milborne worked as a clerk and bookkeeper for a leading New York merchant overseeing business operations from

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte (river), Rotte'') is the second largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the Prov ...

, where he was associated with New Yorkers who were later prominent in the rebellion, including Benjamin Blagge (his brother-in-law), Jacob Mauritz (half-brother of mayor Cornelis Steenwijck), and Joost Stol (likely a son of author Barent Joosten Stol). In February 1689, Samuel Edsall (founder of English Neighborhood), joined him in Rotterdam, before Edsall returned to New York three months later to lead a rebellion there. As a fervent

, his religious and political views brought him into conflict with

Edmund Andros Sir Edmund Andros (6 December 1637 – 24 February 1714) was an English colonial administrator in British America. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served ...

, the governor of the

, who fined and gaoled him. Milborne returned to England and successfully sued the Governor for false imprisonment.

Association with Jacob Leisler

He formed a close association with

, a rich German-born businessman of rabidly anti-Catholic, staunchly Calvinist views and the leader of a populist political faction known as Leislerians. When Governor Andros, now governor of the unpopular

New England Dominion The Dominion of New England in America (1686–1689) was an administrative union of English colonies covering New England and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies (except for Delaware Colony and the Province of Pennsylvania). Its political structure represe ...

, was imprisoned in Boston in 1689 for maladministration, the Leislerians took possession of Fort James in south Manhattan. The lieutenant governor left for England and some members of the provincial council fled to Albany. With Leisler now the de facto governor of the province, Milborne was appointed clerk to the council, attorney general and advocate general, as well as being Leisler's secretary and, from 1691, his son-in-law. Leisler and Milborne instituted a highly autocratic regime under which property was confiscated, mail was opened, homes searched and people were jailed without warrant or trial, and anyone who criticized them was accused of being secretly Catholic or "popishly affected." Wanting to strike a blow at Catholic France, they mounted an unsuccessful invasion of Canada. It was a strange regime in that its proclaimed purposes were (a) to prevent a Catholic takeover, yet there was no real threat of this given how few Catholics were in New York at the time, and (b) to hold power for the new Protestant king and queen of England, William of Orange and his wife Mary, pending their consolidation of power and sending of instructions and representatives to the colony, yet when the new king and queen sent troops and a new governor, Leisler and Milborne were initially resistant to accepting them.

Execution

When a new governor

Henry Sloughter Henry Sloughter (died July 23, 1691) was briefly colonial governor of New York in 1691. Sloughter was the governor who put down Leisler's Rebellion, which had installed Jacob Leisler as ''de facto'' governor in 1689. He died suddenly in July 16 ...

arrived with the resources to put down the rebellion, Leisler and Milborne surrendered to him, but not before shots were fired and lives were lost in a standoff at the fort. They were arrested and tried for murder and treason by a somewhat biased bench. Originally sentenced to be

hanged, drawn and quartered To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III ...

and their estates forfeited to the crown, the two men were in the event simply hanged (hanged, but then cut down prior to death and then beheaded in front of a large crowd).

Personal life

Milborne was first married to a daughter of Samuel Edsall. On 3 February 1691, the widower Milborne was married to Mary Leisler (1669–1747), a daughter of Jacob Leisler. After his death, his widow married

Abraham Gouverneur Abraham Gouverneur (1671 – June 16, 1740) was a Dutch born colonial American merchant and Leislerian politician who served as the Speaker of the New York General Assembly. Early life Gouverneur was born in 1671 "upon the Single, near the Kon ...

, a Recorder of New York City and Speaker of the New York General Assembly. In 1698, largely thanks to the sympathetic efforts of the then governor,

Earl of Bellomont Earl of Bellomont, in the Kingdom of Ireland, was a title that was created three times in the Peerage of Ireland. The first creation came on 9 December 1680 when Charles Kirkhoven, 1st Baron Wotton, was made Earl of Bellomont. He had already bee ...

, the bodies of the two men were disinterred and reburied at the Dutch church and their estates were later restored to their heirs.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milborne, Jacob 1640s births 1691 deaths Year of birth uncertain 17th-century English Puritans People of the Province of New York Attorneys general American rebels 17th-century executions by England People executed by the Thirteen Colonies by hanging