Of the Maryland Historical Society.
MARYLAND was the first Proprietary colony established in America; and its charter contained a more ample grant of power than was bestowed upon any other English colony. To Maryland also belongs the honor of having been the first government which proclaimed and practised religious toleration. The charter was granted in 1632, by Charles I., to Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore. But the true founder of Maryland was George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, a man of singular merit, whose influence upon the fortunes of the colony was such that his character and career belong to its history.
George Calvert was descended from a Flemish family which had long been settled in Yorkshire, where he was born in the year 1582. Graduating Bachelor of Arts at Oxford, he travelled on the Continent, and then entered public life under the patronage of Sir Robert Cecil. Calvert filled various offices until Cecil became Lord High Treasurer, when he was appointed clerk of the Privy Council. He was knighted in 1617, and, upon the disgrace of Sir Thomas Lake, in February, 1619, he was appointed by James I. one of the two principal secretaries of state. He was selected for this important post because there was work to be done, and he had made himself valued in public life for his industry and ability. It is true, indeed, that his theory of the Constitution was similar to that held by the King. He had always been allied with the Court as distinguished from the Country party, and was a stanch supporter of the prerogatives of the Crown. In the Parliament of 1621 he was the leader of the Government forces, and the immediate representative of the King in the House of Commons. When he came to draw the charter of Maryland he framed such a government as the Court, during this period, conceived that England ought to be.
Calvert was not altogether friendly to Spain.[866] It is a mistake to suppose that his political fortunes were so bound up with the success of the Spanish match, that, upon its final rupture in 1623, his position became untenable. He did not resign his secretaryship until February, 1625; and there is no sufficient reason for believing that he did not then do so voluntarily.
See an account of this picture of the first Lord Baltimore, in the Critical Essay.
Fuller, the chief contemporary authority, says that “he freely confessed to the King that he was then become a Roman Catholic, so that he must be wanting in his trust or violate his conscience in discharging his office.” It is certain that he had not forfeited the favor of the King, nor incurred the enmity of the all-powerful Buckingham. He was allowed to sell his secretaryship to his successor for £6,000, and was retained in the Privy Council. A few weeks after his withdrawal from office he was created Baron of Baltimore in the Irish peerage; and in 1627 Buckingham summoned him to a special conference with Charles I. upon foreign affairs. The date of his conversion to the Church of Rome has been the subject of much discussion, but there is no satisfactory evidence that it preceded, for any length of time, the open profession of his new faith.
From early manhood Sir George Calvert had been interested in schemes of colonization. He was a member of the Virginia Company until its dissolution, and was, as secretary of state, one of the committee of the Council for Plantation Affairs. While secretary he determined to become himself the founder of a colony, and in 1620 he purchased from Sir William Vaughan the southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland. In the following year he sent a body of settlers to this region, and expended a large amount of money in establishing them at Ferryland. James I. granted him in 1623 a patent constituting him the Proprietary of this portion of Newfoundland which was called Avalon,—a patent which afterwards became the model of the charter of Maryland. The fertility and advantages of Avalon had been described to Lord Baltimore with the usual exaggeration of discoverers. He made a short visit to it in the summer of 1627, and in the following year he went there, accompanied by several members of his family, with the intention of remaining permanently; but the severity and long duration of the winter convinced him that the attempt to plant an agricultural colony on that inhospitable shore was doomed to failure. In August, 1629, he wrote to the King that he found himself obliged to abandon Avalon to fishermen, and to seek for himself some warmer climate in the New World. He also announced his determination to go with some forty persons to Virginia, and expressed the hope that the King would grant him there a precinct of land, with privileges similar to those he enjoyed in Newfoundland. Charles I., in reply, advised him to desist from further attempts and to return to England, where he would be sure to enjoy such respect as his former services merited,—“well weighing,” added the King, “that men of your condition and breeding are fitter for other employments than the framing of new plantations which commonly have rugged and laborious beginnings.”
Without waiting for an answer to his letter Lord Baltimore sailed for Virginia, where he arrived in October, 1629. To the Virginians he was not a welcome visitor. They either honestly objected to receiving Catholic settlers, being proud of their conformity to the Church of England, or were apprehensive that he had designs upon their territory. They tendered to him and his followers the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. The latter was one which no Catholic could conscientiously take, and it was therefore refused by Baltimore. His offer to take a modified oath was rejected by the council, and they requested him to leave the colony.
While in Virginia Lord Baltimore learned that the northern and southern portions of the territory comprised within the old charter limits of the colony had not been settled, and he determined to ask for an independent grant of a part of this unsettled region. Upon his return to England he learned that the King was willing to accede to his request. Baltimore finally selected for his new colony the country north of the Potomac, and prepared a charter to be submitted to the King, modelled upon the Avalon patent. The name of the colony was left to the choice of the King, who desired that it should be called Terra Mariæ—in English, Maryland—in honor of his Queen Henrietta Maria. This name was accordingly inserted in the patent; but before it passed the seals Lord Baltimore died. His death took place April 15, 1632, and he was buried beneath the chancel of St. Dunstan’s Church. But his great scheme did not die with him. His rights were transmitted to his son and heir Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, to whom the charter was finally issued, June 20, 1632.