As had happened before, the woes of the Virginia Leah brought woe upon the Maryland Rachel. When Governor Berkeley returned from England, he did more than swear at the defiant chaplain Harrison and the other preachers of Puritanism south of James River. He banished the pastors and made life unendurable for the flocks. In 1648 two of the Nansemond elders, Richard Bennett and William Durand, fleeing to Maryland, were kindly received by Governor Stone, who extended a most hospitable invitation to their people to leave Virginia and settle in the Baltimore palatinate. Cecilius had complained that settlers did not come fast enough and his colony was still too weak, whereupon Stone had promised to do his best to bring in 500 new people. His opportunity had now come; early in 1649 an advance body of 300 Puritans came from Nansemond. The rest of their brethren hesitated, fearing lest Catholics might be no pleasanter neighbours than the king's men, but the course of events soon decided them. The news of the execution of Charles I. was generally greeted in Virginia with indignation and horror, feelings which were greatly intensified by the arrival of the Cavaliers who in that year began to flock to Virginia. One ship in September brought 330 Cavaliers, and probably more than 1,000 came in the course of the year. In October the assembly declared that the beheading of the king was an act of treason which nobody in Virginia must dare to speak in defence of under penalty of death. It also spoke of the fugitive Charles II. as "his Majesty that now is," and made it treason to call his authority in question. These were the last straws upon the back of the Puritan camel, and in the course of the next few months the emigration from Nansemond went on till as many as 1,000 persons had gone over to Maryland. They settled upon land belonging to the Susquehannocks, near the mouth of a stream upon which they bestowed the name of the glorious English river that falls into the sea between Glamorgan and the Mendip Hills, and the county through which this new-found Severn flowed they called Providence from feelings like those which had led Roger Williams to give that comforting name to his settlement on Narragansett Bay. Presently this new Providence became a county bearing Lady Baltimore's name, Anne Arundel, and the city which afterwards grew up in it was called Annapolis. This country had not been cleared for agriculture by the Indians, like the region about St. Mary's, and there was some arduous pioneer work for the Puritan colony.
Designs of the Puritans.
In changing the settlement or plantation of Providence into the county of Anne Arundel, something more than a question of naming was involved. The affair was full of political significance. Puritans at first entertained an idea that they might be allowed to form an imperium in imperio, maintaining a kind of Greek autonomy on the banks of their Severn, instead of becoming an integral portion of Baltimore's palatinate. At first they refused to elect representatives to the assembly at St. Mary's; when presently they yielded to Governor Stone's urgency and sent two representatives in 1650, one of them was straightway chosen speaker of the House; nevertheless, in the next year the Puritans again held aloof. They believed that the Puritan government in England would revoke Lord Baltimore's charter, and they wished to remain separated from his fortunes. Their willingness to settle within his territory was coupled with the belief that it would not much longer be his.
Submission of Virginia to Cromwell.
This belief was not wholly without reason. The war-ships of the Commonwealth were about to appear in Chesapeake Bay. Such audacious proceedings as those of the Virginia Assembly could not be allowed to go unnoticed by Parliament, and early in 1652 four commissioners were sent to receive the submission of Berkeley and his colony. One of these commissioners was Richard Bennett, the Puritan elder who had been driven from Nansemond. Another was the irrepressible Claiborne, whom Berkeley had helped drive out of Maryland. The Virginians at first intended to defy the commissioners and resist the fleet, but after some parley leading to negotiations, they changed their minds. It was not prudent to try to stand up against Oliver Cromwell, and he, for his part, was no fanatic. Virginia must submit, but she might call it a voluntary submission. She might keep her assembly, by which alone could she be taxed, all prohibitions upon her trade should be repealed, and her people might toast the late king in private as much as they pleased; only no public stand against the Commonwealth would be tolerated. On these terms Virginia submitted. Sir William Berkeley resigned the governorship, sold his brick house in Jamestown, and went out to his noble plantation at Green Spring near by, there to bide his time. For the next eight years things moved along peaceably under three successive Roundhead governors, all chosen by the House of Burgesses. The first was Richard Bennett, who was succeeded in March, 1655, by Edward Digges; and after a year Digges was followed by that gallant Samuel Mathews who had once given such a bear's hug to the arrogant Sir John Harvey. As for Claiborne, he was restored to his old office of secretary of state.
Claiborne and Bennett in Maryland.
In Maryland there was more trouble. As soon as Claiborne had disposed of the elder sister, Leah, he went to settle accounts with the youthful Rachel, who had so many wooers. There was Episcopal Virginia, whose pretensions to the fair damsel were based on its old charter; there was the Catholic lord proprietor, to whom Charles I. had solemnly betrothed her; there were the Congregational brethren of Providence on the Severn, whose new pretensions made light of these earlier vows; but the master of the situation was Claiborne, with his commission from Parliament and his heavily armed frigate. Mighty little cared he, says a contemporary writer, for religion or for punctilios; what he was after was that sweet and rich country. Claiborne's conduct, however, did not quite merit such a slur. In this his hour of triumph he behaved without violence, nor do we find him again laying hands upon Kent Island. On arriving with Bennett at St. Mary's, they demanded that Governor Stone and his council should sign a covenant "to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England as it is now established without King or House of Lords." To this demand no objection was made, but the further demand, that all writs and warrants should run no longer in Baltimore's name, but in the name of the Keepers of the Liberty of England, was obstinately refused. For this refusal Stone was removed from office, a provisional government was established, and the commissioners sailed away. This was in April, 1652. After two months of meditation Stone sent word to Jamestown that he was willing to yield in the matter of the writs, whereupon Claiborne and Bennett promptly returned to St. Mary's and restored him to office.
Renewal of the troubles.
But those were shifting times. Within a year, in April, 1653, Cromwell turned out of doors the Rump Parliament, otherwise called Keepers of the Liberty of England; and accordingly, as writs could no longer run in their name, Stone announced that he should issue them, as formerly, in the name of Lord Baltimore. He did this by order of Cecilius himself. Trouble arose at the same time between Stone and the Puritans of Providence, and the result of all this was the reappearance of Bennett and Claiborne at St. Mary's, in July, 1654. Again they deposed Stone and placed the government in the hands of a council, with William Fuller as its president. Then they issued writs for the election of an assembly, and once more departed for Jamestown. According to the tenor of these writs, no Roman Catholic could either be elected as a burgess or vote at the election; in this way a house was obtained that was almost unanimously Puritan, and in October this novel assembly so far forgot its sense of the ludicrous as to pass a new "Toleration Act" securing to all persons freedom of conscience, provided such liberty were not extended to "popery, prelacy, or licentiousness of opinion." In short, these liberal Puritans were ready to tolerate everybody except Catholics, Episcopalians, and anybody else who disagreed with them!
Battle of the Severn.