George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore

Infobox Politician
name = George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore


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caption = Lord Baltimore
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office = Secretary of State
term_start = 1619
term_end = 1625
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successor =
constituency =
majority =
office2 = Proprietor of the Avalon Colony
term_start2 = 1620
term_end2 = 1632
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office3 =
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birth_date = c. 1580
birth_place = Kiplin, Richmondshire
death_date = death date|1632|4|15|df=y
death_place = Lincoln's Inn Fields, London
party =
relations =
spouse =
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children =
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George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (c. 1580 – 15 April 1632) was an English politician and coloniser. He achieved domestic political success as a Member of Parliament and later Secretary of State under King James I, though he lost much of his political power after his support for a failed marriage alliance between Prince Charles and the Spanish royal family. Rather than continue in politics, he resigned all of his political offices in 1625 except for his position on the Privy Council and declared his Catholicism publicly. He was granted the title of 1st Baron Baltimore in the Irish peerage upon his resignation.

Calvert took an interest in the colonization of the New World, at first for commercial reasons and later to create a refuge for English Catholics. He became the proprietor of Avalon, the first sustained English settlement on the island of Newfoundland. Discouraged by the climate and the sufferings of the settlers there, Calvert looked for a more suitable spot further south and sought a new royal charter to settle the region that was to become the state of Maryland. Calvert died five weeks before the new charter was sealed, leaving the settlement of the Maryland colony to his son Cæcilius. His son Leonard Calvert was the first colonial governor of Maryland. Historians have long recognized George Calvert as the founder of Maryland, in spirit if not in fact.

Early life

Little is known of the extraction of the Yorkshire Calverts, although at George Calvert's knighting it was claimed that his family originally came from Flanders. [Browne, Page 2.] Calvert's father, Leonard, was a country gentleman who had achieved some prominence as a tenant of Philip Lord Wharton,Krugler, Page 28.] and was wealthy enough to marry a gentlewoman, Alicia (or Alice) Crosland, and establish his family on the estate of Kiplin, near Catterick in Richmondshire, North Yorkshire.Browne, Page 3.] George Calvert was born at Kiplin in late 1579 or early 1580.Krugler, Page 28.] His mother died while he was still an infant, his father subsequently marrying Grace Crosland, a relative of Alicia's.

A decade before George was born, Sir Thomas Gargrave had described Richmondshire as a territory where all gentlemen were "evil in religion", in other words Roman Catholic;Krugler, Page 28.] it appears Leonard Calvert was no exception. During the reign of Elizabeth I, the principles of royal government over the church and of compulsory religious uniformity were legitimised by acts of parliament and enforced through penal laws which gave the state the right to interfere in the private religious lives of its citizens. [Krugler, Pages 12–16; From 1571, graduated fines were imposed on anyone attending mass, and generous rewards were offered to informers. Middleton, Page 95.] The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity of 1559 included an oath of allegiance to the queen and an implicit denial of the Pope's authority over the church. This oath was required of any common citizen who wished to hold high office, attend university, or take advantage of opportunities controlled by the state.Krugler, Pages 12–16.]

The Calvert household was not spared the intrusion of the Elizabethan penal laws. From the year of George's birth onwards, Leonard Calvert was subjected to repeated harassment by the Yorkshire authorities, who in 1580 extracted a promise of conformity from him, compelling his attendance at church.Krugler, Pages 28–30.] In 1592, when George was twelve, the authorities denounced one of his tutors for teaching "from a popish primer" and instructed Leonard and Grace to send George and his brother Christopher to a Protestant tutor, and, if necessary, to present the children before the commission “once a month to see how they perfect in learning”.Krugler, Pages 28–30.] As a result, the boys were sent to a Protestant tutor called Mr Fowberry at Bilton. Once again, Leonard was obliged to give a bond of conformity; he was also banned from employing Catholic servants and forced to purchase an English Bible, which was to "ly open in his house for everyone to read".Krugler, Pages 28–30.]

To what extent Leonard's conformity was genuine cannot be determined; but in 1593, records show that Grace Calvert was committed to the custody of a "pursuivant", an official responsible for identifying and prosecuting Catholics, and in 1604, she was described as the "wife of Leonard Calvert of Kipling, non-communicant at Easter last".Krugler, Pages 28–30.] George Calvert went up to Trinity College, Oxford, matriculating in 1593–4, where he studied foreign languages and received a bachelor’s degree in 1597. As the oath of allegiance was compulsory there after the age of sixteen, he would almost certainly have pledged conformity while at Oxford.

The same pattern of conformity, whether pretended or sincere, continued through Calvert’s early life. After Oxford, he moved to London in 1598, where he studied municipal law at Lincoln’s Inn for three years.Krugler, Page 30.] In November 1604, he married Anne Mynne (or Mayne) in a Protestant ceremony at St Peter’s, Cornhill, where his address was registered as St Martin in the Fields.Krugler, Page 32.] His children, including his heir, Cæcilius, who was born in the winter of 1605–6, were all baptised as Protestants, and when Anne died in 1622, she was buried at Calvert’s local Protestant church, St Martin in the Fields.Krugler, Page 32.]

Political success

Calvert named his son Cæcilius for Sir Robert Cecil,Browne, Page 4.] Fiske, Page 255.] spymaster to Queen Elizabeth, whom Calvert had met during an extended trip to Europe between 1601 and 1603, after which he became known as a specialist in foreign affairs. Calvert carried a packet for Cecil from Paris, and so entered the service of the principal engineer of James VI of Scotland’s succession to the English throne in 1603.Krugler, Page 30.] James was keen to reward Cecil, whom he made a privy councillor and secretary of state, earl of Salisbury in 1605, and in 1608 Lord High Treasurer, making him the most powerful man at the royal court.Krugler, Page 30.] And as Cecil rose, Calvert rose with him. Calvert’s foreign languages, legal training, and discretion made him an invaluable aide to Cecil, who, no lover of Catholics,Krugler, Page 32.] seems to have accepted Calvert’s conformity as beyond question. Working at the centre of court politics, Calvert exploited his influence by selling favours, an accepted practice for the times. [Krugler, Page 31.] One by one, Calvert accumulated a number of small offices, honours, and sinecures. In August 1605, he attended the king at Oxford, and received an honorary master-of-arts degree in an elaborate ceremony at which the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Oxford and Northumberland, and Cecil received degrees. [Browne, Page 4; Krugler, Page 32.] Given the prestige of the other graduates, Calvert's was the last awarded, but his presence in such company signalled his growing stature.

In 1606, the king made Calvert clerk of the Crown and Assizes in the province of Connacht, County Clare, Ireland, his first royal appointment, and in 1609, appointed him a clerk of the Signet office, a post which required the preparation of documents for the royal signature and brought Calvert into close contact with the king.Krugler, Page 32.] Calvert also served in James’s first parliament as a member for the borough of Bossiney, Cornwall, installed there by Cecil to support his policies. [Browne, Pages 3–4.] In 1610, Calvert was appointed a clerk of the Privy Council.Krugler, Page 32.] All these positions would have required an oath of allegiance.

With Cecil's support, Calvert came into his own as an advisor and supporter of King James. In 1610 and 1611, Calvert undertook missions to the continent on behalf of the king, visiting a number of embassies in Paris, Holland, and Cleves,Krugler, Page 35.] and acting as an ambassador to the French court during the coronation of Louis XIII in 1610.Browne, Page 5.] A correspondent from France reported that Calvert gave “everyone great contentment with his discreet conversation”.Krugler, Page 35.] In 1615, James sent him to the Palatinate, whose impoverished elector, Frederick V, had married James’s daughter Elizabeth in 1613.Krugler, Page 39.] One of Calvert’s tasks was to convey the king’s disapproval that Elizabeth, for lack of money, had given away expensive jewels to a gentlewoman leaving her employ. Frederick’s decision in 1619 to accept the throne of Bohemia triggered a war with the powerful Habsburgs which James attempted to end through a proposed alliance with Spain. [Krugler, Page 40.]

In 1611, James employed Calvert to research and transcribe his tract against the Dutch theologian Conrad Vorstius. [Krugler, Page 36.] The following year, Cecil died, and Calvert acted as one of the four executors of his will. The king’s favourite, Sir Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, assumed the duties of secretary of state and recruited Calvert to assist with foreign policy, in particular the Latin and Spanish correspondence. [Krugler, Page 37.] Carr, soon raised to the earldom of Somerset, was not a success in the job, however, and fell from favour partly as a result of the murder of Thomas Overbury, to which Carr's wife, Frances, the former Countess of Essex, pleaded guilty in 1615. Carr's place as James’s principal favourite was now taken by the handsome George Villiers, with whom James was said to have been infatuated. [Stewart, Page 265.]

In 1613, the king commissioned Calvert to investigate Catholic grievances in Ireland, along with Sir Humphrey Wynch, Sir Charles Cornwallis, and Sir Roger Wilbraham. The commission spent almost four months in Ireland, and its final report, partly drafted by Calvert, concluded that conformity should be enforced more strictly in Ireland, Catholic schools be suppressed, and bad priests removed and punished.Krugler, Page 38.] The king resolved not to reconvene an Irish parliament until the Catholics "shall be better disciplined".Krugler, Page 38.] In 1616, James endowed Calvert with the manor of Danby Wiske in Yorkshire, which brought him into contact with Sir Thomas Wentworth, who became his closest friend and political ally. [Krugler, Page 38 and Page 83.] Calvert was now wealthy enough to buy the Kiplin estate in his home parish;Krugler, Page 39.] and in 1617, his social status received a further boost when he was knighted.Krugler, Page 38.]

In 1619, Calvert completed his rise to power when James appointed him as one of the two principal secretaries of state, after Sir Thomas Lake's dismissal following scandals, including his wife’s indiscretions with state secrets. [Browne, Page 6.] Calvert did not emerge as a candidate until the end of the selection process, his appointment coming as a surprise to most observers, including to Calvert himself. Assuming he owed his promotion to the king’s increasingly powerful favourite, George Villiers, he sent him a great jewel as a token of thanks. Villiers returned the jewel, however, saying he had had nothing to do with the matter. [Krugler. Pages 41–42.] Calvert's personal fortune was secured when he was additionally appointed a commissioner of the treasury with a £1,000 pension and a subsidy on imported raw silk which would later be converted to a further £1,000 pension. [Browne, Page 8; Brugger, Page 4.]

ecretary of state

In Parliament, a political crisis developed over the king's policy of seeking a Spanish wife for Charles, Prince of Wales, as part of a proposed alliance with the Hapsburgs. [Krugler, Page 24.] In the Parliament of 1621, it fell to Calvert to advocate this "Spanish match", as it came to be called, against the majority of Parliament, who feared an increase in Catholic influence on the state. [Krugler, Pages 24–5.] As a result of his pro-Spanish stance and defence of relaxations in the penal laws against Catholics, Calvert became estranged from many in the Commons, who were suspicious of his close familiarity with the Spanish ambassador's court. [Krugler, Pages 49–51.] Calvert also faced difficulties in his private life: his wife's death on 8 August 1622, left him the single father of ten children, the oldest of whom, Cæcilius, was sixteen years old.Browne, Page 11.]

Although King James rewarded Calvert in 1623 for his loyalty by granting him a convert|2300|acre|km2|sing=on estate in County Longford, Ireland, where his seat was known as the Manor of Baltimore, [Brugger, Page 4.] Calvert found himself increasingly isolated from court circles as the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham wrested control of policy from the ageing James. Without consulting the diplomatically astute Calvert, the prince and the duke travelled to Spain to negotiate the Spanish marriage for themselves, with disastrous results. [Krugler, Pages 61–3.] Instead of securing an alliance, the visit provoked a hostility between the two courts which quickly led to war. In a reversal of policy, Buckingham dismissed the treaties with Spain, summoned a war council, and sought a French marriage for the prince. [Krugler, Pages 63–64.]

Resignation and conversion

As the chief parliamentary spokesman for an abandoned policy, Calvert no longer served a useful purpose to the court, and by February 1624 his duties had been restricted to placating the Spanish ambassador.Krugler, Page 66.] The degree of his disfavour was made clear to him when he was reprimanded for supposedly delaying diplomatic letters.Krugler, Page 66.] Calvert bowed to the inevitable. On the pretext of ill health, he began negotiations for the sale of his position, finally resigning the secretariat in February 1625. [Krugler, Pages 65–66.] No disgrace was attached to Calvert's departure from office: the king, to whom he had always remained loyal, confirmed his place on the Privy Council and appointed him Baron Baltimore, in County Longford, Ireland. ["On 16/26 February, in recompense for past services, James I appointed Calvert Baron Baltimore of Baltimore, in County Longford, Ireland." Codignola, 12; In March, Lord Carew wrote: "Calvert is removed from his place as secretary, but yet without disgrace, for the king hath created him baron of Baltimore in Ireland, and remaynes a councillor". Krugler, Page 74.] Immediately after Calvert's resignation, it emerged, to the surprise of most, that he had converted to Catholicism. [Amerigo Salvetti, Tuscan representative in London, wrote in his January-February newsletter "being resolved for the future to live and die as a Catholic, he knew he could not serve him [the duke] where he was without the jealousy of the state and danger from Parliament." Krugler, Page 74.]

The connection between Calvert's resignation and his conversion to Catholicism was a complex one. George Cottington, a former employee of Calvert, suggested in 1628 that Calvert's conversion had been in progress a long time before it was made public. [Codignola, Page 12.] George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, reported that opposition to Calvert, combined with his loss of office, had "made him discontented and, as the saying is, "Desperatio facit monachum", so hee apparently did turne papist, which hee now professeth, this being the third time that he hath bene to blame that way [sic] ". [Krugler, Page 69. Abbot's remark suggests previous wavering on Calvert's part; Krugler speculates that the two previous times "he had bene to blame that way" were during his childhood, when his Catholic family was forced to become Protestant, and during the period of distress and doubt Calvert experienced after the death of his wife.] Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, later claimed Calvert had been a secret Catholic all along ("infinitely addicted to the Catholic faith"), which explained his support for lenient policies towards Catholics and for the Spanish match. [Krugler, Page 70. The contemporary historian Arthur Wilson (1595–1652) later called Calvert a "Hispanolized Papist" and said that the king had appointed him secretary of state because he was a Catholic. Krugler, Page 40.]

However, such interpretations of his motives were retrospective: no one had questioned Calvert's conformity at the time, and if he had indeed been secretly Catholic, he had hidden it well. It seems more likely Calvert converted in late 1624, since a Discalced Carmelite priest called Simon Stock reported to the "Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide ["The Sacred Congregation "de propaganda fide", officially established by Gregory XV on 22 June 1622 with the bull "Inscrutabile divinae providentiae", had the double mission of spreading the True Faith among the infidels and of protecting it where Catholics lived side-by-side with non-Catholics. 'Propaganda' was meant to pursue these goals by co-ordinating all missionary activities and centralising information on foreign lands…on the global chessboard on which Propaganda was operating, England was one of its most difficult problems." Codignola, Page 9.] in Rome on November 15 that he had converted two Privy Councillors to Catholicism, one of whom historians are certain was Calvert. ["I have gained for Our Lord, by His Grace, two councillors of the King's Privy Council, the most intelligent and sufficient men that are of the Royal Council...And most religious men are they, and they live beneath our government." Letter of Simon Stock, 15 November 1624. Quoted by Codignola, 11.] Calvert, who had probably met Stock at the Spanish embassy in London, later worked with the priest on a scheme for a Catholic mission in his Newfoundland colony. [Codignola, Page 11.]

The old king died in March 1625, but the newly crowned King Charles maintained Calvert's barony and his place on the Privy Council. [Browne, Page 14; Fiske, page 256; But Codignola says, "The king’s promise to keep him on as a member of the Privy Council was not to be maintained by his successor, Charles I, to whom Lord Baltimore refused to swear loyalty". Codignola, Page 12; Krugler says he left the Privy Council in March. Krugler, Page 5.] Calvert now turned his attention to his Irish estates and his overseas investments. He was not entirely forgotten at court, however. [Krugler, Page 78.] After Buckingham's dabblings in wars against Spain and France had ended in failure, he recalled Baltimore to court, and for a while may have considered employing him in the peace negotiations with Spain. [The Venetian ambassador wrote “Should this new scheme attain the king's assent, he [Baltimore] will be employed in it, because they consider him to be a staunch Spaniard”. But later he wrote, "Because he is so notoriously a Spaniard the king cannot employ him from lack of confidence”. Krugler, Page 90.] Though nothing came of Baltimore's recall in the end, he was able to renew his rights over the silk-import duties, which had lapsed with the death of James I, [Krugler, Pages 90–91.] and secure Charles' blessing for his venture in Newfoundland.

Avalon colony

Calvert had long maintained an interest in the exploration and settlement of the New World, beginning with his investment of twenty-five pounds in the second Virginia Company in 1609, and a few months later a more substantial sum in the East India Company which he increased in 1614. [Krugler, Pages 33-4 and 39; He later also became a member of the New England Company in 1622. Browne, Page 15.] In 1620, Calvert purchased a tract of land in Newfoundland from Sir William Vaughan, who had failed to establish a colony on the island. He named it Avalon, after the legendary spot where Christianity was introduced to Britain. [Browne, Page 16.] The plantation lay on what is now called the Avalon Peninsula [Between the modern towns of Fermeuse and Aquaforte.] and included the fishing station at Ferryland. [Fiske, Page 256.] Calvert almost certainly had a fishery project in mind at this stage. [Pope, Page 32.]

Calvert dispatched Captain Edward Wynne and a group of Welsh colonists to Ferryland, where they landed in August 1621 and set about constructing a settlement. [Browne, Page 16; Codignola, Page 10.] Calvert received positive reports from Wynne concerning the potential for local fisheries and for the production of salt, hemp, flax, tar, iron, timber and hops. [Browne, Page 16; Wynne promised to send Calvert a barrel of the best salt that ever "my eyes beheld". Krugler, Page 79.] Wynne also praised the climate, declaring, "It is better and not so cold as England" and predicting that the colony would become self-sufficient after one year.Krugler, Page 79.] Others corroborated Wynne's reports: for example, Captain Daniel Powell, who delivered a further party of settlers to Ferryland, wrote: "The land on which our Governor planted is so good and commodious, that for the quantity, I think there is no better in many parts of England"; but he added ominously that Ferryland was "the coldest harbour in the land". [When Calvert later wintered in the colony in 1628–9, he would write of being deceived by the "lying letters of the Governors and such". Krugler, Page 79.] Wynne and his men began work on various building projects, including a substantial house and the shoring up of the harbour. To protect them against marauding French ships, a recent hazard in the area, Calvert employed the pirate John Nutt. [When Nutt was captured in 1623 after switching his activities to the Irish Sea, Calvert had him released and Captain Eliot, his captor, imprisoned for malfeasance of office. Krugler, Page 82.]

The settlement appeared to be progressing so well that in January 1623 Calvert obtained a concession from King James for the whole of Newfoundland, though the grant was soon reduced to cover only the Avalon peninsula, owing to competing claims. [Browne, Page 17; Codignola, Page 10.] The final charter constituted the province as a palatinate, officially titled the "Province of Avalon", under Calvert's personal rule. [Browne, Page 17; Fiske, Page 256; A Palatinate was a province governed by a semi-autonomous agent in the king's name. Calvert, who had in April 1621 opposed attempts by the Commons to extend their authority to the fishing rights in the New World, believed that plantations "are not yet annexed to the Crown of England, but are the King's as gotten him by conquest" governed according to the king's prerogative, as he saw fit. Krugler, Page 78.]

After resigning the secretariat in 1625, the new Baron Baltimore made clear his intention to visit the colony himself: "I intend shortly," he wrote in March, "God willing, a journey for Newfoundland to visit a plantation which I began there some few years since." [Krugler, Pages 75 and 84.] However, his plans were disrupted by the death of King James, and by the crackdown on Catholics with which Charles I began his reign in order to appease his opponents. The new king required all privy councillors to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance; and since Baltimore, as a Catholic, could only refuse, he was obliged to step down from that cherished office. [Charles accepted Baltimore's refusal with good grace. "His ability to manipulate the government for his own purposes over the next few years belies any suggestion that the government hounded him out of England." Krugler, Pages 85-7.] Given the new religious and political climate, and perhaps also to escape a serious outbreak of plague in England, Baltimore moved to Ireland; and his expedition to Newfoundland set sail without him in late May 1625 under Sir Arthur Aston, who became the new governor of Avalon. [ Krugler, Pages 85–86. Aston was granted a royal licence for the voyage in return for bringing back some hawks and elks for the king.] A reference by David Rothe, bishop of Ossary, in Ireland, to a "Joane [also recorded as Jane] Baltimore now wife" of Calvert, reveals that Baltimore had recently remarried. [Since there is no record of the marriage, it would certainly have been a Catholic one. Krugler, Page 86.]

There is no evidence from before 1625 that Baltimore's colonial ambitions possessed a religious dimension, but from the time of his conversion onwards, he took care to cater for the religious needs of his colonists, both Catholic and Protestant. He had asked Simon Stock to provide priests for the 1625 expedition, [Stock wrote to his superiors that the "Avalon gentleman", as he cautiously called Baltimore, "desires to take with him two or three brethren to sow the Sacred Faith in that land." Krugler, Page 89.] but Stock's recruits arrived in England after Aston had sailed. Stock's own ambitions for the colony appear to have exceeded Baltimore's: in letters to De Propaganda Fide in Rome, Stock claimed the Newfoundland settlement could act as a springboard for the conversion of natives not only in the New World but also in China, the latter via a passage he believed existed from the east coast to the Pacific Ocean. [Codignola, Page 25; Stock conceived the Avalon colony as a vital launching pad for conversion, lest the natives "become pernicious heretics" under the influence of Protestant settlers. Krugler, Page 89.]

Baltimore in Avalon

Baltimore was by now more determined than ever to visit his colony in person. In May 1626, he wrote to Wentworth:

Aston's return to England in late 1626, [Aston died the following year in the siege of Île de Ré, opposite La Rochelle, in the service of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Codignola, Page 42.] along with all the Catholic settlers, failed to deter Baltimore, who finally sailed for Newfoundland himself in 1627, arriving on July 23 and staying only two months before returning to England. [Browne, Page 18.] He had taken both Protestant and Catholic settlers with him, as well as two secular priests, Thomas Longville and Anthony Pole (also known as Smith), the latter remaining behind in the colony when Baltimore departed for England. The land Baltimore had seen was by no means the paradise described by some early settlers, being only marginally productive; [Browne, Pages 18–19.] but the summer climate was deceptively mild, and his brief visit gave Baltimore no reason to alter his plans for the colony.

In 1628, he sailed again for Newfoundland, this time with his second wife, most of his children, [He left his eldest son, Cæcilius, at home to supervise his lands and his affairs. Krugler, Page 95.] and forty more settlers, to officially take over as Proprietary Governor of Avalon. [Browne, Page 19; Fiske, page 261.] He and his family moved into the house at Ferryland built by Wynne, a sizeable structure for the time, by colonial standards, and the only one in the settlement large enough to accommodate religious services for the community. [The building was a two-storey longhouse, fifteen by forty-four feet, probably of stone, partly roofed with boards and partly with "sedge, flagges, and rushes"; it had a stone kitchen and chimney, a parlour, a two-room storehouse, a smithy, saltworks, brewhouse, henhouse, and tenements. Pope, Page 128.]

Matters connected to religion were to bedevil Baltimore's stay in "this remote part of the worlde where I have planted my selfe [sic] ". He sailed at a time when military preparations were underway to relieve the Huguenots at La Rochelle, and was dismayed to find that the war with France had spread to Newfoundland, and that he was obliged to spend most of his time fighting off French attacks on English fishing fleets with his own ships the "Dove" and the "Ark". [Browne, Page 20; Fiske, Page 261.] As he wrote to Buckingham, "I came to builde, and sett, and sowe, but I am falne to fighting with Frenchmen [sic] ". His settlers were so successful against the French that they captured several ships, which they escorted back to England to help with the war effort. Baltimore was granted the loan of one of the ships to aid in his defence of the colony, as well as a share of the prize money. [Krugler, Page 95.]

Adopting a policy of free religious worship in the colony, Baltimore allowed the Catholics to worship in one part of his house and the Protestants in another. This novel arrangement proved too much for the resident Protestant priest, Erasmus Stourton—"that knave Stourton", as Baltimore referred to him—who, after altercations with Baltimore, was placed on a ship for England, where he lost no time in reporting Baltimore's practices to the authorities, complaining that the Catholic priests Smith and Hackett said mass every Sunday and "doe use all other ceremonies of the church of Rome in as ample a manner as tis used in Spayne [sic] ". [Krugler, Page 97. Baltimore's tolerance went down no better with the Catholics: Propaganda banned Catholics from worshipping in the same house as "heretics", but in practice Baltimore's house in Ferryland was the only option for either denomination. Krugler, Page 98.] and that Baltimore had even had the son of a Protestant forcibly baptised as a Catholic.Codignola, Page 53.] Although Stourton's complaints were investigated by the Privy Council, he had not reckoned on Baltimore's support in high places and the case was dismissed. [Browne, Pages 23–24; Fiske, Page 261; Codignola, Page 53; Baltimore thanked the king for "protecting me also against calumny and malice" of those who sought "to make me seem foule" in your eyes. Krugler, Page 100.]

Meanwhile, Baltimore had become disenchanted with conditions in "this wofull country", and he wrote to his old acquaintances in England lamenting his troubles. [Codignola, Page 53; Browne, Pages 19–20.] The final blow to his hopes was dealt neither by the French nor by the likes of Stourton but by the Newfoundland winter of 1628–9, which did not release its grip until May. Like others before them, the residents of Avalon suffered terribly from the cold and from malnutrition. [Browne, Page 24; Fiske, Page 261.] Nine or ten of Baltimore's company died that winter, and with half the settlers ill at one time, his house had to be turned into a hospital. In addition, the sea froze over, and nothing would grow before May. "Tis not terra Christianorum", Baltimore wrote to Wentworth.Krugler, Page 102.] He confessed to the king: "I have found...by too deare bought experience [that which other men] always concealed from me...that there is a sad face of wynter upon all this land".Krugler, Page 102.]

Baltimore now solicited a new charter from the king. In order to found an alternative colony in a less hostile climate further south, he requested "a precinct" in Virginia, where he could grow tobacco. [Browne, Page 24–25.] He wrote to his friends Francis Cottington and Thomas Wentworth enlisting their support for this new proposal, admitting the impression his abandonment of Avalon might make in England: "I shall rayse a great deal of talke and discourse and be censured by most men of giddiness and levity [sic] ". [Letter to Wentworth. Krugler, Page 102.] The king, perhaps guided by Baltimore's friends at court, replied expressing concern for Baltimore's health and gently advising him to forget colonial schemes and return to England, where he would be treated with every respect: "Men of your condition and breeding are fitter for other imployments than the framing of new plantations, which commonly have rugged & laborious beginnings, and require much greater meanes, in managing them, than usually the power of one private subject can reach unto".Codignola, Page 54.]

Baltimore sent his children home to England in August. By the time the king's letter reached Avalon, he had departed with his wife and servants for Virginia.Codignola, Page 54.] Browne, Page 27.]

Attempt to found a mid-Atlantic colony

In late September or October 1629, Baltimore arrived in Jamestown, where the Virginians, who suspected him of designs on some of their territory and vehemently opposed Catholicism, gave him a cool welcome and tendered him the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, which he refused to take—upon which they ordered him to leave. [Browne, Page 27; Fiske, Pages 263–4; The Virginians may also have nursed unpleasant memories of Baltimore's membership of the Virginia Company board, when James I had revoked its original charter in 1624. Krugler, Pages 104–5.] After no more than a few weeks in the colony, Baltimore left for England to pursue the new charter, unaccountably leaving his wife and servants behind. [Browne, Page 28.] In early 1630, he procured a ship to fetch them, but it foundered off the Irish coast, and his wife was drowned. [Krugler, Pages 106–7.] Baltimore described himself the following year as "a long time myself a Man of Sorrows". [Krugler, Page 117.]

Baltimore spent the last two years of his life constantly lobbying for his new charter, though the obstacles proved difficult. The Virginians, led by William Claiborne, who sailed to England to make the case, campaigned aggressively against separate colonising of the Chesapeake, claiming they themselves possessed the rights to that area.Krugler, Page 107.] Baltimore also found himself short of capital, having exhausted his fortune, and was sometimes forced to depend on the assistance of his friends.Krugler, Page 107.] To make matters worse, in the summer of 1630, his household was infected by the plague, which he survived. He wrote to Wentworth: "Blessed be God for it who hath preserved me now from shipwreck, hunger, scurvy and pestilence..." [Krugler, Page 108.]

His health declining, Baltimore's persistence over the charter finally paid off in 1632. Notwithstanding renewed objections from the Virginians, the king first granted him a location south of Jamestown, but Baltimore asked the king to reconsider in response to opposition from other investors interested in settling the new land of Carolina into a sugar plantation. [Fiske, Page 265.] Baltimore eventually compromised by accepting redrawn boundaries to the north of the Potomac River, on either side of the Chesapeake Bay. [Browne, Page 17.] The charter was about to pass when the fifty-two-year-old Baltimore died in his lodgings at Lincoln's Inn Fields, on 15 April 1632. [Browne, Page 31; Krugler, Page 118.] Five weeks later, on 20 June 1632, the charter for Maryland passed the seals. [Krugler, Page 118.]

Legacy

In his will, written the day before he died, Baltimore beseeched his friends Wentworth and Cottington to act as guardians and supervisors to his son Cæcilius, who inherited the title of Lord Baltimore and the imminent grant of Maryland. [Browne, Page 31; Fiske, Pages 265–266; Krugler, Page 118.] Baltimore's two colonies in the New World continued under the proprietorship of his family, [Browne, Pages 31–32.] though Avalon, which remained a prime spot for the salting and export of fish, was expropriated by Sir David Kirke, with a new royal charter which Cæcilius vigorously challenged, and was finally absorbed into Newfoundland in 1754. [Browne, Page 32; Pope, Page 6.] Although Baltimore's failed Avalon venture marked the end of an early era of attempts at proprietary colonisation, it laid the foundation upon which permanent settlements developed in that region of Newfoundland. [Pope, Page 4.]

Maryland became a prime tobacco exporting colony in the mid-Atlantic and, for a time, a refuge for Catholic settlers, as George Calvert had hoped.Hennesey, Pages 36–45.] Under the rule of the Lords Baltimore, thousands of British Catholics emigrated to the tobacco plantations of Maryland, establishing some of the oldest Catholic communities in what would later become the United States. Although Catholic rule in Maryland was eventually nullified by the re-assertion of royal control over the colony, only a few decades later Maryland joined twelve other British colonies along the Atlantic coast in declaring their independence from British rule and the right to freedom of religion for all citizens in the new United States. [Hennesey, Pages 55–68.]

ee also

*British colonization of the Americas
*Kiplin Hall

Notes

References

*Browne, William Hand (1890). " [http://books.google.com/books?id=9kwOAAAAIAAJ George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert: Barons Baltimore of Baltimore] ". New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company.
*Brugger, Robert J. (1988). "Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 1634–1980". Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. ISBN 080183399X
*Codignola, Luca (1988). "The Coldest Harbour of the Land: Simon Stock and Lord Baltimore’s Colony in Newfoundland, 1621–1649". Translated by Anita Weston. Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press. ISBN 0773505407.
*Fiske, John (1897). " [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05279899&id=Is95T1j5wJoC&pg=RA1-PA255&lpg=RA1-PA255&dq=george+calvert+baltimore Old Virginia and Her Neighbors] ". Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
*Hennesey, James (1981). "American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States". Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195032683.
*Krugler, John D. (2004). "English and Catholic: the Lords Baltimore in the Seventeenth Century." Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801879639.
*Middleton, Richard (3rd ed. 2002). "Colonial America: A History. 1565–1776." Oxford, UK; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0631221417.
*Pope, Peter Edward (2004). "Fish into Wine: the Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century." Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807829102.
*Stewart, Alan (2003). "The Cradle King: A Life of James VI & I." London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-6984-2.

External links

* [http://www.heritage.nf.ca/govhouse/governors/p08.html Calvert, Sir George (bio)] , from "The Governorship of Newfoundland and Labrador: Government House" website.
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=103 Calvert, Sir George (bio)] , from "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online" * [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9012057/George-Calvert-1st-Baron-Baltimore Calvert, Sir George (bio)] , from "Encyclopædia Britannica", full-article free, latest online edition.
* [http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/002100/002167/html/msa02167.html Calvert, Sir George (bio)] , from Maryland State Archives. Includes photos and sources.

Persondata
NAME= George Calvert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= 1st Baron Baltimore
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Confidante of Kings James I and Charles I, proprietor of Avalon colony and instigator of the settlement at Maryland
DATE OF BIRTH= c. 1580
PLACE OF BIRTH= Trinton, Richmondshire
DATE OF DEATH= 15 April 1632
PLACE OF DEATH= Baltimore Hall, County Longford