Overview The factional split of 1689–1691 ran through multiple Lawrence branches. Some aligned with the Leislerian provisional regime that governed “for William and Mary”; others joined the Anti-Leislerian coalition that restored royal control and presided over Jacob Leisler’s treason trial in 1691. In practice, alignments reflected office-holding, militia command, Dutch–Huguenot ties, and marriage networks with leading New York families.

Leislerian-Aligned Lawrences Evidence from contemporary and near-contemporary sources places Major Thomas Lawrence of Newtown (c.1621–1703) in active provincial service under the revolutionary government. An order of 29 July 1690 directs “Major Thomas Lawrence” to press men—horse and foot—indicating his command of Queens County forces during the crisis, which corresponds with Leisler’s mobilization after the Schenectady raid.

Later provincial rosters show a William Lawrence sitting on the Governor’s Council in the early 1700s (under Lord Cornbury), a post commonly held by men who had navigated the 1690s partisan landscape into the restored royal order. While this does not, by itself, prove 1689 Committee of Safety membership, it confirms a Lawrence presence at the apex of provincial government soon after the rebellion.

Anti-Leislerian Lawrences The clearest Anti-Leislerian identification is John Lawrence (1618–1699), twice Mayor of New York City (1672 and again 1691). After Governor Henry Sloughter arrived, John Lawrence sat as a judge on the special Court of Oyer and Terminer that tried Leisler and Jacob Milborne for treason—an unmistakable signal of Anti-Leisler alignment.

Patterns Across Branches Queens/Long Island militia leadership (Newtown/Flushing) placed some Lawrences in the orbit of the provisional government’s defensive measures against French and Indigenous incursions; Manhattan municipal and mercantile positions drew others toward the Anti-Leisler restoration centered on the new royal governor and council. These are not absolute rules—kinship and patronage frequently crossed factional lines—but they map onto the principal split visible in 1690–1691. The political bitterness after the May 16, 1691 executions kept the labels “Leislerian” and “Anti-Leislerian” alive in New York for decades.

Women, Marriages, and Alliance Networks Women of the Lawrence family appear in the record chiefly through marriage alliances that linked Lawrence lines to dominant Dutch-English houses on both sides of the divide (e.g., Bayard, Van Cortlandt, Beekman/Schuyler circles). These marriages often eased later reconciliation, even where immediate kinsmen had been on opposing sides in 1689–1691.

Consequences for the Family For Anti-Leislerians like John Lawrence, restored royal favor translated into office-holding and judicial preferment in the early 1690s. For Leislerian-adjacent lines in Queens, militia service in 1689–1690 signaled local authority and community standing during the emergency, though association with the fallen regime could be a handicap in the immediate aftermath. In the longer run, however, both strands re-entered provincial life: by the early 1700s a William Lawrence is recorded on the Governor’s Council (1702–1708 cohort), exemplifying how the name persisted at the top of New York politics despite the fracture.