Appointment of William Stone as governor.
In 1645 Sir William Berkeley returned to Virginia, and from him the fugitive Calvert received effective aid and sympathy, so that late in 1646 he was able to invade his own territory with a force of Virginians and fugitive Marylanders. Claiborne and Ingle were soon expelled, and Leonard Calvert's authority was fully reëstablished. Not long afterward, in June, 1647, this able governor died. For his brother Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, this was a trying time. He was a royalist at heart, with little sympathy for Puritans, but like many other Catholics he thought it wise to keep on good terms with Parliament, in the hope of securing more toleration than heretofore. Such a course between Charybdis and Scylla was attended with perils. In 1648 Cecilius appointed to his governorship William Stone, a liberal-minded Protestant and supporter of Parliament. Soon after the king's beheading, the young Charles II., a fugitive in the island of Jersey, hearing of Stone's appointment, interpreted it as an act of disloyalty on Baltimore's part, and so in a fit of spite made out a grant handing over the palatinate of Maryland to Sir William Davenant, that poet-laureate who was said to resemble Shakespeare until ravening vanity made him pretend to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son. Sir William actually set sail for America, but was overhauled in the Channel by a Parliament cruiser and carried off to the Tower, where amid sore distress he found a generous protector in John Milton. It was not very long before Charles II. came to realize his mistake about Lord Baltimore.
The Toleration Act of 1649.
In Maryland the great event of the year 1649, which witnessed the death of Charles I., was the passage on April 21 of the Act concerning Religion. This famous statute, commonly known as the "Toleration Act, was drawn up by Cecilius himself, and passed the assembly exactly as it came from him, without amendment. With regard to Cecilius, therefore, it may be held to show, if not the ideas which he actually entertained, at least those which he deemed it prudent to embody in legislation. It is not likely to have surpassed his ideals, but it may easily have fallen somewhat short of them. The statute is so important that the pertinent sections of it deserve to be quoted at length:[149]—
"That whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands thereunto belonging, shall from henceforth blaspheme God, that is curse him, or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or shall deny the holy Trinity, the ffather sonne and holy Ghost, or the God head of any of the said three persons of the Trinity, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull speeches, words or language concerning the said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons thereof, shall be punished with death, and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his heires.
"That whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter any reproachfull words, or speeches, concerning the blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Saviour, or the holy apostles, or Evangelists, or any of them, shall in such case for the first offence forfeit to the said Lord Proprietary and his heires the sume of ffive pound sterling."—
"That whatsoever person shall henceforth upon any occasion, declare, call, or denominate any person or persons whatsoever inhabiting, residing, traffiqueing, trading or commerceing within this Province, or within any of the Ports, Harbors, Creeks or Havens to the same belonging, an heretick, Scismatick, Idolator, Puritan, Independent, Prespiterian, popish priest, Iesuit, Iesuited papist, Lutheran, Calvenist, Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barronist, Roundhead, Sep'atist, or any other name or term in a reproachfull manner relating to matter of Religion, shall for every such offence forfeit the sume of tenne shillings sterling.—
"Whereas the inforcing of the conscience in matters of Religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceble government of this Province, and the better to preserve mutuall Love and amity amongst the Inhabitants thereof; Be it therefore also by the Lord Proprietary with the advice and consent of this Assembly, ordered and enacted (except as in this present act is before declared and sett forth,) that noe person or persons whatsoever within this Province, or the Islands: Ports, Harbors, Creeks or havens thereunto belonging, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any waies troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect to his or her religion."
A statute which threatens Unitarians with death leaves something to be desired in the way of toleration, even though it fines a man ten shillings for calling his neighbour a Calvinist in a reproachful manner. Nevertheless, for the age when it was enacted this statute was eminently liberal, and it certainly reflects great credit upon Lord Baltimore. To be ruler over a country wherein no person professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested in the name of religion was a worthy ambition, and one from which Baltimore's contemporaries in Massachusetts and elsewhere might have learned valuable lessons. Such a policy as was announced in this memorable Toleration Act was not easy to realize in the seventeenth century. The very year in which it was enacted saw the grim wolf of intolerance thrusting his paw in at the door.
Migration of Puritans from Virginia to Maryland.