32-

out 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 for

land, 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

or 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

legiance 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 repugn

cial pledges of Charles and his father not to disturb the interest of either planter or adventurer in any part of the territory formerly conveyed by the charter of 1609.4 Nevertheless, the king preferred law to equity, and October 30, 1629, granted

altimore arrived in London soon after this letter was written, and in December, 1629, petitioned to be permitted to "choose for his part" a tract south of James River and north of Carolana. A cha

the Indian war, which began with the massacre in 1622, he was appointed general, and in 1629 received lands in the Pamunkey Neck for valuable military service. Active and fearless, he engaged with great success in the trade for furs in the bay, and was recognized as the

latitude, the meridian of the western fountain of the Potomac, the southern bank of the Potomac River, and a line drawn east from Watkins Point. In the grant the land was described as "hitherto unsettled and occupied only by barbarians ignorant of God." The king first propos

obert Cecil, was born in 1605, and in 1621 entered Trinity College, Oxford University. He married Anne Arundel, daughter of Lord Thomas Arundel, of Wardour. As Cecilius, unlike his fath

ign Plantations, who heard the complaint, and July 3, 1633, decided to "leave Lord Baltimore to his patent" and "the other partie to the course of the law."8 This certainly meant a decision against the wholesale claim

alled a crown government. Had Charles been a Spanish or French king he would have appointed an absolute governor who would have tyrannized over the people. But Charles, as an English king, admitted the colonists into a share of the government by permitting the

nd of the county palatinate, so called because the rulers had in their counties jura regalia as fully as the king had in his palace. In Durham the bishop had the sole power of pardoning offences, appointing judges and other officers, coining money, and granting titles of honor and creating courts. In the other counties of England all writs ran in the king's name, but in Durham they ran

d common socage by the delivery of two Indian arrows yearly at the palace of Windsor and a promise of the fifth part of all gold and silver mined. In legislation the bishop had decidedly the advantage, for his po

heir age. Had policy been solely their motive, they would never have identified themselves with a persecuted and powerless sect in England. In the charter of Maryland, Baltimore was given "the patronage and advowsons of all churches which, with the increasing worship and religion of Christ within the said region, hereafter shall happen to be built, together with the license and faculty of erecting and founding churches

rt, brother of Lord Baltimore, was a Catholic, as were Thomas Cornwallis and Gabriel Harvey, the two councillors associated with him in the government, and the other persons of influence on board. Among the latter were two Jesuit priests, to one of whom, Father Andrew White, we owe a charming acc

ooked upon as dangerous persons. The effort of the emigrants to sail without subscribing the necessary oaths caused the ships to be brought back by

excited over a rumor that they were Spaniards coming to subdue the country. After a stay of eight or nine days for fresh provisions the emigrants set sail up Chesapeake Bay and soon ente

e Indians. He found that they all acknowledged the sovereignty of the "emperor of Piscataqua," who, relieved of his apprehensions, gave them permission to settle in the country. The final choice of a seating-place was due to Captain Henry

common stock, but the property was held in severalty; there was a proper proportion of gentlemen and laborers, few of one class and many of the other; Virginia was near at hand and provisions and cattle could be easily secured; and they had immediate use of Indian-clea

inia, became the currency and leading product. Its cultivation caused the importation of a great number of servants, "divers of very good rank and quality,"14 who, after a service of four or five years, became freemen. In the assembly of 1638 sever

, he erected the population on the south side of St. George's River into a "hundred," and afterwards created other hundreds in other parts of the colony. But the wealth of watercourses and the cultivation of tobacco caused the population to

ing an agricultural and landed aristocracy. There was a council like that in Durham,

ons and the courts baron and leet in Durham. As for the manorial courts, feudal relicts transplanted to America, they sprang from Lord Baltimore's attempt to build up an aristocracy like that which attended upon the bishop in his palace in Durham. In his "Conditions for Plantations," August 8, 16

were settled on their large estates. Yet the manor, as a free-governing community, was a stronghold of liberty. At the courts baron and leet the tenants elected the minor officers, tried

ught to have been sufficient. But political and social equality sprang from the very conditions of life in the New World; and despite the veneering of royalty, Maryland came soon to be a government of the people. The strug

rendered the assembly peculiarly sensitive to governmental influence. The second assembly met at St. Mary's, January 25, 1638, and consisted of the governor and council, freemen specially summoned, freemen present of their own volition, and proxies.16 Govern

emen, which assent should temporarily make them valid until his own confirmation or rejection should be received. To the next assembly, held F

tor's writ, and burgesses elected by the people of the different hundreds. This law controlled the make-up of the next four assemb

ot to send them any more such "bodies of laws, which served to little end than to fill our heads with jealousies and suspicions of that which we verily understand not." The next year, 1650, a constitutional system was perfected not very different from the

ret

of the United S

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p., Col., 1574-166

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ol., 1574-1660, p. 104;

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chives,

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al. of State Pap., Co

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ders of Maryl

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ari?, 53; Ogilby

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chives,

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sett, Constitutional Beginnings of North Car

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ist. Soc., Fund Publica

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chives,

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eonard Calvert, Calvert Papers (Md. Hist. Soc., Fund Publicat

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New Englan

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unders of M

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ors (Johns Hopkins Universi

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chives,

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es, I., 32,