38. Comment on the Avalon Charter of 1623
With the addition of two of its sections, with the necessary changes of names, and with three or four other slight modifications, the Maryland Charter of 1632 is an exact transcript of the Charter of Avalon, given in 1623 by James I to George Calvert (afterward, the first Lord Baltimore). The Avalon Charter has been printed, the editor believes, only in Scharf's Maryland (I, 34 ff.).
The sections of the two documents correspond up to XVIII. Sections XVIII and XIX of the Maryland Charter (relating to subinfeudation and manorial courts) are not found in the earlier document. Sections XVIII-XX of the Avalon Charter correspond to XX-XXII of the Maryland patent.
Other changes, aside from names, etc., are:
1.—(Section IV.) In the granting of advowsons and other ecclesiastical powers, there is no reference in the Avalon Charter to the "ecclesiastical laws of the kingdom of England." This phrase is added in the Maryland Charter, since Baltimore has now (1624) been converted to Catholicism, probably as a safeguard.
2.—Baltimore's tenure in Avalon (§ 5) is to be "in Capite, by Knight's Service" [not so, but in free socage, in Maryland], "yielding therefor ... a white horse, so often as we or our successors shall come into the said region," together with the usual "fifth part of gold and silver ore."
3.—The Avalon Charter does not refer directly to representative government. The authorization to Baltimore to publish laws runs,—"with the advice, assent, and approbation of the Freeholders of the said Province, or the greater part of them," while the Maryland Charter says the assent of "the Free Men of the said Province, or the greater part of them, or their delegates, or deputies"; but the earlier like the later charter leaves it to the proprietor to assemble the people "in such form as to him shall seem best," and this probably looked to a representative gathering.
4.—(XVII.) The Avalon Charter does not mention the participation of the popular assembly in granting taxes. Given such an assembly, however, and the renunciation by the English government (Section XVIII) of that power, then the possession of the power by the Assembly would inevitably follow. In the Maryland Charter it is expressed.
The Avalon Charter then, is the first royal patent to give to settlers in America political rights, in addition to the private common-law privileges. It is followed (as to sections VII and VIII) in exact detail by the Heath Charter for Carolina (1629), the Baltimore Charter (1632), and the Plowden Charter for New Albion (1634).[27]