[Footnote 44:  Tyler, “Virginians Voting in the Colonial Period,” in William and Mary Quarterly, VI., 9.]

[Footnote 45:  “Education in Colonial Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly, V., 219-223, VI., 1-7, 71-86, 171-186, VII., 1-9, 65, 77.]

[Footnote 46:  Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 112.]

[Footnote 47:  “Eaton’s Deed,” in William and Mary Quarterly, XI, 19.]

CHAPTER VII

FOUNDING OF MARYLAND

(1632-1650)

The founding of Maryland was due chiefly to the personal force of George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, son of Leonard Calvert.  He was born near Kiplin, in Yorkshire, about 1580, and graduated at Trinity College, Oxford, 1597.  After making a tour of Europe he became the private secretary of Sir Robert Cecil, who rapidly advanced his fortunes.  He served upon several missions to investigate the affairs of Ireland, was knighted in 1617, and in 1619 succeeded Sir Thomas Lake as principal secretary of state.

In this office he began to revolve plans of colonization in America, to which his attention was directed as a member of the Virginia Company since 1609.  In 1620 he bought from Sir William Vaughan the southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland, known as Ferryland, and the next year sent some colonists thither.  He supported the Spanish match; and when Charles changed his policy he obtained from the king in 1623 a charter for his province, which he called Avalon.  In 1625 he resigned his secretaryship and openly avowed his adherence to the church of Rome; but the king, as a mark of favor, raised him to the Irish peerage, with the title of Baron of Baltimore, after a small town of that name in Ireland.[1]

Baltimore returned to his plans of colonization, and in 1627 went to Newfoundland with his wife and children.  But the country proved too cold for him and he determined to “shift” to a warmer climate.  Accordingly, in August, 1629, he wrote to the king for a “grant of a precinct of land in Virginia,” with the same privileges as those which King James gave him in Newfoundland.[2] Without waiting for a reply he left Avalon, and in October, 1629, arrived in Virginia, where the governor, Dr. John Pott, and his council received him politely but coldly.  Neither his religion nor his past career as a court favorite, nor the design which he made known of establishing an independent state within the confines of Virginia, commended him to the people of Jamestown.

Naturally, they wished to get rid of him, and the council tendered him the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, which, in the various instructions from the king, they were strictly enjoined to require of all new-comers.  The oath of allegiance occasioned no difficulty, but the oath of supremacy, which required Baltimore to swear that he believed the king to be “the only supreme governor in his realm in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes,” was repugnant to him as a Catholic, and he declined to take it, but offered to subscribe to a modified form.  This was refused, and after several weeks’ sojourn Lord Baltimore sailed away to England to press his suit in person before the king.[3]