At all events, Andros was favorably received at home, and in 1692 was appointed Governor of Virginia, to which command was joined that of Maryland. "He brought over to Virginia the Charter of William and Mary College, of which he laid the foundation. He encouraged manufactures and the cultivation of cotton in that Colony, regulated the Secretary's office, where he commanded all the public papers and records to be sorted and kept in order, and when the State House was burned, had them carefully preserved, and again sorted and registered. By these and other commendable acts, he succeeded in gaining the esteem of the people, and in all likelihood would have been still more useful to the Colony had his stay been longer, but his administration closed in November, 1698." (O'CALLAGHAN, Woolley's Journal, p. 67.)
Strangely enough, the Governor who in Massachusetts was chiefly hated for his love of Episcopacy, was overthrown in Virginia for quarrelling with the Church authorities. The Earl of Bellomont writes in 1690, in a letter printed in N.Y. Col. Doc. iv. 490, "Sir Edmund Andros for quarreling with Doctor Blair in Virginia, brought the resentment of the Bishop of London and the Church (they say) on his head, which is the reason he has lost his government, and by the same rule they would get me recalled by making this a church quarrel." Bishop Meade in his "Old Churches and Families of Virginia," i. 157-8, gives some account of this controversy. The opponent of Andros was the Rev. James Blair, Commissary of the Bishop of London and President of the College, who seems to have passed nearly all his life in disputes with successive Governors; and it is no proof that Andros was in the wrong that he was recalled and superseded. The record of the trial of Dr. Blair is preserved at Lambeth, the result being that he returned triumphant with a good sum of money for his College.
Sir Edmund soon reappears, however, as the recipient of Court favor, being in 1704 appointed Governor of Guernsey, an office which he held for two years, retaining also the post of Bailiff of the Island, which he had for life. This is nearly the last we learn of him, and his age, nearly seventy years, must have debarred him from farther service. We find his name indeed among the new members in the "Proceedings of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 20 Feb. 1712-3 to 19 Feb. 1713-4;"[11] and this was in the last year of his life, as he was buried at St. Anne's, Soho, Westminster, London, 27th Feb. 1713-4, in his 76th year.