George Calvert (lord Baltimore) Seeks a Charter for Maryland-his Son Receives It
Sir George Calvert has been alluded to as the founder of Maryland. He was a thorough courtier, and one of the most brilliant and able of the supporters of the royal prerogative. King James knighted him in 1617, and in 1619 he was commissioned one of the principal Secretaries of State. He was then thirty-seven years of age. For a few years afterward he was one of the most active of James's courtiers.
Calvert had taken great interest from early youth in the discovery and settlement of foreign countries. He was a member of the East India Company, and also of the London Company, by whom Virginia was colonized. The same year when the May-Flower came to America, he purchased a part of Newfoundland, and named his domain Avalon. He at once took vigorous measures for planting an English colony there, but failed. At about the same time his son Cecil married the beautiful Anne, daughter of the Earl of Arundel, who was a member of the Roman Catholic Church. This union brought him into more intimate relations with distinguished persons of that sect. Among them was Gondamar, the Spanish ambassador in London, and Tillieres, the French ambassador at the same court. The influence of these men soon wrought a change in Calvert's religious thoughts. He became an advocate for the Spanish match, on the floor of the House of Commons; and he inflamed the resentment of King James against that body by giving him a highly-colored account of their proceedings in the matter. Finally, in the summer of 1624, his adherence to the Church of Rome became so palpable, that he was compelled to abandon the Secretaryship. Early the following March, James gave him an Irish peerage by creating him "Baron of Baltimore in the County of Longford." Sixteen days afterward the monarch died. When his successor came to White Hall and the oath of allegiance and supremacy was offered to Lord Baltimore as one of the Privy Council, he declined to take it, and retired to Ireland bearing a cordial letter of introduction and good-will from his king to the Lord Deputy of that country.
The Roman Catholics of England were suffering much persecution at that time from the Puritans on one side, who were daily increasing in strength, and from the Churchmen on the other; and Lord Baltimore desired to provide an asylum for them in America. In the summer of 1627 he visited Avalon to inspect it in person, with a view of planting a Roman Catholic colony there. He went in a ship armed with twenty cannon, as a protection against the French. A few friends and some priests accompanied him. After remaining a few months he returned to England, and the next spring he sailed again for Newfoundland with his second wife and all his children, excepting the married ones.
The following winter was a very severe one. In the spring he sent his children home; and at the beginning of autumn, with his wife and retainers, he sailed for Virginia, arriving at Jamestown in October. When he appeared before Governor Harvey and his council, and was asked what his purpose was, he answered: "To plant and dwell." "Will you take the oath which we all have taken?" asked the governor. "I cannot with a good conscience," his lordship answered. "Then you must leave with the first ship hence to England," said Harvey. He did so, leaving his wife and retainers to winter in Virginia. He returned for them in 1630, and brought with him a patent from King Charles for a territory south of the James River, for the rigors of the climate and the barrenness of the soil of Avalon, and the menaces of the French, had determined him to abandon his domain on Newfoundland. The Virginia Company made so much opposition to his new charter that he was induced to surrender it and accept one for territory north and east of the Potomac River, and embracing the Chesapeake Bay, which he had explored.
Lord Baltimore desired to call that chartered domain Crescentia; but in deference to the king, when the charter was drawn up, the space for the name was left blank that his Majesty might fill it as he pleased. When Baltimore appeared before Charles to receive his signature to the document, the monarch asked: "What will you call the country?" His lordship referred the matter to his Majesty. "Then let us name it after the queen, said Charles. "What do you think of Mariana?" The expert courtier dissented, because that was the name of the Spanish historian who taught the heresy that "the will of the people is higher than the law of tyrants." The king, still disposed to compliment his queen, said: "Let it be Terra Maria" -Mary Land. So it was that in the charter the province was named Maryland, in honor of Queen Henrietta Mary. Before the great seal of England was affixed to the patent, Lord Baltimore died in London. His son Cecil, the successor to his estates and titles, received the charter a few months afterward, dated June 20, 1632. The territory defined in the patent extended along each side of Chesapeake Bay from the fortieth degree to the mouth of the Potomac, and westward along the line of that river.