thundering, cursing & swearing, base, abusive, billingsgate Language.” He called the colony’s leaders “dogs, rogues, villains, dastards, cheats, and cowards”; its women “whores, bitches, [and] jades.”3
Nicholson’s rages were so extraordinary, Blair warned a correspondent, that his report would seem incredible to people who had not seen them.4 But other witnesses reported similar experiences. His “Huffing and Hectoring” was particularly strong, a local minister noted, after the failure of his attempt to woo the teenaged daughter of a prominent family. Though the governor (then in his mid- forties) had pursued her with poems about his “pretty charming innocent dove,” she finally rejected him. A furious Nicholson threatened “to cut the throats of three men” if she married, the bridegroom, the justice of the peace who issued the license, and the clergyman who performed the ceremony. The affair, he declared in a six-hour tirade, “must end in blood.”5
Another observer noted a similarly troubling outburst in 1702, when some naval officers assigned to Virginia were staying in the college building. Pacing the halls with one of the guests in the evening, the governor “flew out into … a Passion.” Shouts and curses echoed through the building. Fearing a repeat of the fire that had broken out two days before, one sea captain left his room so quickly that he forgot to bring his wooden leg. The guests, amazed at Nicholson’s “Folly & Passion,” declared that “the fittest Place for such a Man” was “Bedlam,” the fabled London asylum.6 According to one of Nicholson’s friendly correspondents, this judgment was not far from that held by the bishop of London, a major figure in the Anglican church, who suggested that the most plausible excuse the governor could make for his behavior might be a claim of insanity.7
About the time of the incident (although not entirely because of it), Blair also began to question the governor’s fitness. The problem, he told London officials later in 1702, was not simply the governor’s “passions,” frightening as they were. Nicholson’s rages cloaked his true intentions, “a maine designe” to take further power. Blair’s frustration grew so intense that he finally embarked on another voyage to London. Once again, he succeeded, convincing the British government to relieve Nicholson of his duties in 1705.8
Blair’s assessment of the governor’s purposes is difficult to credit. No further evidence of a secret plan has ever appeared. And Blair himself never raised it again. But Nicholson’s violent behavior was more than unfortunate personal idiosyncrasy. As Blair recognized, it expressed an authoritarian vision long present in European culture that had recently become more insistent in England in the wake of seventeenth-century turmoil. Blair’s resistance to Nicholson, furthermore, was deeply intertwined with another, more recent development, the rise of the ideals of politeness.
Figure 3. The original building of the College of William and Mary. As the caption to this 1705 drawing by a French visitor notes, Francis Nicholson lived in this building as well, a setting that probably did not help the relationship between the governor and college president Blair. Franz Ludwig Michel, “Reisebeschreibung nach Amerika,” Burgerbibliothek Bern, Mss.h.h.X.152, p.
The growth of both these changes in America, however, was not simply an echo of far-off English experiences. Further changes within the colonies both increased Nicholson’s frustrations and made his rages more troubling. America first suffered from a widespread failure of colonial governance in these years, difficulties created by governors and other officials seeking to deal with increased imperial expectations. At the same time, a newly confident group of elites in many colonies sought greater power for themselves and their provinces, often seeing imperial governors and governance as primary impediments to their aspirations. Together these political issues and social changes helped provide some of the most important settings for the development of the politics of politeness in America.
Nicholson’s supporters sometimes claimed that his problematic behavior resulted from his unsuccessful love affair. The governor’s harshness may well have had psychological origins. But examining these fits and their historical contexts provides a broader understanding of his actions. Nicholson’s rages were at once expressions of his views about authority; symptoms of increasing tensions between the empire and elites; and stimulus for emerging Virginia leaders to rethink the connections between power and personal behavior by drawing on the ideals of politeness they found so lacking in Nicholson’s outrageous behavior.
A Terror to Evil Doers
On July 9, 1698, Maryland governor Francis Nicholson faced down one of his most persistent opponents. Gerard Slye had been brought before the governor and his council on charges that he had libeled the governor and plotted against the government. Slye had allied with his stepfather John Coode, a perpetual malcontent who had overthrown the Calvert proprietors almost ten years before and now had set his sights on Nicholson. Slye struck an aggressive tone. With his hands on his hips in what the council minutes considered “a proud Scornful manner,” he informed the governor that he expected to be treated like a gentleman. Slye then sat down across from Nicholson without leave, presenting himself as the governor’s equal. Nicholson disregarded the affront, but could not contain himself when the prisoner addressed him as “Mister” rather than as his “Excellency.” The governor ordered Slye to stand. Did he, the governor demanded, “kn[o]w him to be his most Sacred Majestys Governor of this Province”? Faced to choose between submission and actual rebellion, Slye pulled back, fully acknowledging Nicholson’s authority.9
Nicholson’s combative stance served him well. Two days of questioning and browbeating forced the prisoner to admit his attacks on Nicholson. A more formal court prosecution, again overseen by the governor, followed. A weary Slye finally begged Nicholson’s pardon. Whereas before he had sat down with the governor, he now figuratively threw himself at Nicholson’s feet. “Your Excellencys humble Petitioner from the Bottom of his heart is sorry,” he wrote, adding that the governor’s “care prudence diligence & Circumspection may Justly deserve the affections & prayers of your Excellencys long Continuance in the Government.” Presumably prompted by Nicholson, he also included a separate statement that his offenses were not just against the governor but the government as well. Presenting the petition to the council, Nicholson noted that he was happy to see the last admission. Had the crime been against him, “he would have Scorned to have kept him in prison half an hour.” The council expressed concerns about Slye’s sincerity, but Nicholson pronounced himself satisfied. Asking only for bail to ensure Slye’s appearance at trial, he let the prisoner return home. Nicholson’s actions had deftly defused the situation. Slye and Coode did not challenge Maryland’s government for another decade. When Nicholson returned to Virginia later that year, he boasted to a member of the Board of Trade that Maryland was “in profound peace and quietness.”10
Scholars who have studied the governor’s record often seek to separate his ferocious temper from his faithful devotion to his duty. Nicholson’s unfortunate personal flaws, they suggest, undermined his real abilities as a governor.11 But Nicholson’s loyalty inspired not only his energetic administration, but his extraordinary anger. The strategy that Nicholson used against Slye also drove his rages. Nicholson’s aggressive tone and outrageous fits of passion demanded that subordinates fully recognize and accept his authority. Maintaining respect for government, he held, was not only the central task of governing. It provided the foundation of civilization itself. Nicholson’s anger, like his public persona as a whole, dramatized an authority that he believed brooked no competitors and admitted no questioning.
Examining Nicholson’s outbursts in the context of his career and his views of governing shows that he carefully picked his targets. He never directed his anger at his superiors. Rather than lashing out in blind fury, Nicholson’s anger expressed his faith in the traditional hierarchy of English authority, and in the sacred nature of church
