THE MARYLAND PALATINATE.
The Irish Baltimore.
On the southwestern coast of Ireland, not far from Cape Clear, the steamship on its way from New York to Liverpool passes within sight of a small promontory crowned by an ancient village bearing the Gaelic name of Baltimore, which signifies "large townlands."[122] The events which transferred this Irish name to the banks of the Patapsco River make an interesting chapter of history.
George Calvert.
George Calvert, son of a wealthy Yorkshire farmer of Flemish descent, was born about 1580. After taking his degree at Oxford and travelling for some time on the Continent, he was employed as an under-secretary in the state department by Sir Robert Cecil, after whom he named his eldest son Cecilius. His warm advocacy of the Spanish marriage made him a great favourite of James I., so that in 1617 he was knighted and in 1619 was appointed secretary of state. He seems always to have had a leaning toward the Roman Church. Whether he was converted in 1624, or simply made public profession of a faith long cherished in secret, is matter of doubt. At all events, he resigned his secretaryship at that time. The next year one of the last things done by James, a few days before his death, was to raise Calvert to the Irish peerage as Baron Baltimore.
A palatinate in Newfoundland.
The son of Mary Stuart had a liberal way of dealing with his favourites. In March, 1623, he granted the great southeastern promontory in Newfoundland—the region now known as Ferryland, between Trinity and Placentia bays—to George Calvert, to be held by him and his heirs forever. The government was to be a "palatinate," a statement which calls for a somewhat detailed explanation.
Origin of palatinates.
When that great and far-sighted ruler William the Conqueror arranged the affairs of England after the battle of Hastings, he sought to prevent such evils as those against which the newly founded Capetian monarchy in France was struggling for life, evils arising from the imperfect subordination of the great feudal lords. To this end he made it a rule not to grant large contiguous estates to the same lord, and in every county he provided that the king's officer, the sheriff, should be clothed with powers overriding those of the local manorial officers. He also obliged the tenants of the barons to swear fealty directly to the crown. This shrewd and wholesome policy, as developed under his able son Henry I. and his still abler great-grandson Henry II., has profoundly affected the political career of the English race. But to this general policy William admitted one class of exceptions. In the border counties, which were never quite free from the fear of invasion, and where lawlessness was apt to be more or less prevalent in time of peace, it was desirable to make the local rulers more powerful. Considerations of this sort prevailed throughout mediæval Europe. Universally, the ruler of a march or border county, the count or graf or earl placed in such a responsible position, acquired additional power and dignity, and came to be distinguished by a grander title, as margrave, marquis, or count of the marches. In accordance with this general principle, William the Conqueror granted exceptional powers and consolidation of authority to three counties, to Durham on the Scotch border, to Chester on the border of Wales, and to Kent, where an invader from the Continent might with least difficulty effect a landing. Local administration in those counties was concentrated in the hands of the county ruler; they were made exceptionally strong to serve as buffers for the rest of the kingdom, and they were called "palatinates" or "counties palatine," implying that within their boundaries the rulers had quasi-regal rights as complete as those which the king had in his palace. They appointed the officers of justice, they could pardon treasons and felonies, forfeitures at common law accrued to them, and legal writs ran in their name instead of the king's. The title of "count palatine" carries us back to the times of the Merovingian kings in Gaul, when it belonged to one of the highest officers in the royal household, who took judicial cognizance of all pleas of the crown. Hence the title came to be applied to other officers endowed with quasi-regal powers. Such were the counts palatine of the Rhine and Bavaria, who in the course of the thirteenth century became electoral princes of the Holy Roman Empire. One of their domains, the Rhenish Palatinate, of which Heidelberg in its peerless beauty is the crown and glory, has contributed, as we shall hereafter see, an element of no small importance to the population of the United States.
Changes in English palatinates.