THE MARYLAND PALATINATE.
[Sidenote: The Irish Baltimore.]
ON the southwestern coast of Ireland, not far from Cape Clear, the
steamship on its way from New York to Liverpool passes within sight of
a small promontory crowned by an ancient village bearing the Gaelic
name of Baltimore, which signifies "large townlands."[122] The events
which transferred this Irish name to the banks of the Patapsco River
make an interesting chapter of history.
[Sidenote: George Calvert.]
George Calvert, son of a wealthy Yorkshire farmer of Flemish descent,
was born about 1580. After taking his degree at Oxford and travelling
for some time on the Continent, he was employed as an under-secretary
in the state department by Sir Robert Cecil, after whom he named his
eldest son Cecilius. His warm advocacy of the Spanish marriage made him
a great favourite of James I., so that in 1617 he was knighted and in
1619 was appointed secretary of state. He seems always to have had a
leaning toward the Roman Church. Whether he was converted in 1624, or
simply made public profession of a faith long cherished in secret, is
matter of doubt. At all events, he resigned his secretaryship at that
time. The next year one of the last things done by James, a few days
before his death, was to raise Calvert to the Irish peerage as Baron
Baltimore.
[Sidenote: A palatinate in Newfoundland.]
The son of Mary Stuart had a liberal way of dealing with his
favourites. In March, 1623, he granted the great southeastern
promontory in Newfoundland--the region now known as Ferryland, between
Trinity and Placentia bays--to George Calvert, to be held by him and
his heirs forever. The government was to be a "palatinate," a statement
which calls for a somewhat detailed explanation.
[Sidenote: Origin of palatinates.]
When that great and far-sighted ruler William the Conqueror arranged
the affairs of England after the battle of Hastings, he sought to
prevent such evils as those against which the newly founded Capetian
monarchy in France was struggling for life, evils arising from the
imperfect subordination of the great feudal lords. To this end he made
it a rule not to grant large contiguous estates to the same lord, and
in every county he provided that the king's officer, the sheriff,
should be clothed with powers overriding those of the local manorial
officers. He also obliged the tenants of the barons to swear fealty
directly to the crown. This shrewd and wholesome policy, as developed
under his able son Henry I. and his still abler great-grandson Henry
II., has profoundly affected the political career of the English race.
But to this general policy William admitted one class of exceptions.
In the border counties, which were never quite free from the fear of
invasion, and where lawlessness was apt to be more or less prevalent in
time of peace, it was desirable to make the local rulers more powerful.
Considerations of this sort prevailed throughout mediæval Europe.
Universally, the ruler of a march or border county, the count or graf
or earl placed in such a responsible position, acquired additional
power and dignity, and came to be distinguished by a grander title, as
margrave, marquis, or count of the marches. In accordance with this
general principle, William the Conqueror granted exceptional powers
and consolidation of authority to three counties, to Durham on the
Scotch border, to Chester on the border of Wales, and to Kent, where
an invader from the Continent might with least difficulty effect a
landing. Local administration in those counties was concentrated
in the hands of the county ruler; they were made exceptionally
strong to serve as buffers for the rest of the kingdom, and they were
called "palatinates" or "counties palatine," implying that within
their boundaries the rulers had quasi-regal rights as complete as
those which the king had in his palace. They appointed the officers
of justice, they could pardon treasons and felonies, forfeitures at
common law accrued to them, and legal writs ran in their name instead
of the king's. The title of "count palatine" carries us back to the
times of the Merovingian kings in Gaul, when it belonged to one of the
highest officers in the royal household, who took judicial cognizance
of all pleas of the crown. Hence the title came to be applied to
other officers endowed with quasi-regal powers. Such were the counts
palatine of the Rhine and Bavaria, who in the course of the thirteenth
century became electoral princes of the Holy Roman Empire. One of their
domains, the Rhenish Palatinate, of which Heidelberg in its peerless
beauty is the crown and glory, has contributed, as we shall hereafter
see, an element of no small importance to the population of the United
States.
[Sidenote: Changes in English palatinates.]
To return to William the Conqueror: in an age when the organization
of society was so imperfect, and action at a distance so slow and
difficult, the possession of quasi-regal powers by the rulers of the
palatine counties made it much easier for them to summon quickly their
feudal forces in case of sudden invasion. In view of the frequency of
quarrels and raids on the border, the quasi-regal authority was liable
at any moment to be needed to prevent war from breaking out, and the
proper administration of justice demanded a short shrift and a sharp
doom for evil-doers. The powers granted by William to the palatine
counties resembled those wielded by the French dukedoms of the same
period, but with admirable forethought he appointed to rule them
priests who could not marry and found feudal families. Durham and for
a time Chester were ruled by their bishops, and over Kent as a secular
jurisdiction William placed his own brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.
In course of time many changes occurred. Kent soon lost its palatine
privileges, while those of Chester were exercised by its earls until
the reign of Henry III., when the earldom lapsed to the crown. After
the conquest of Wales the county of Pembroke on its southwestern coast
was made a palatinate, but its privileges were withdrawn by Henry VIII.
For a time such privileges were enjoyed by Hexhamshire, between Durham
and Northumberland, but under Elizabeth that little county was absorbed
in Northumberland. One other northern shire, the duchy of Lancaster,
was made a palatinate by Edward III., but that came to an end in 1399,
when the Duke of Lancaster ascended the throne of England as Henry IV.
Traces of its old palatinate jurisdiction, however, still survive.
Until the Judicature Act of 1873 Lancaster and Durham had each its
own distinct and independent court of common pleas, and the duchy of
Lancaster has still its own chancellor and chancery court outside of
the jurisdiction of the lord chancellor. As for the palatine authority
of the bishops of Durham, it was vested in the crown in the year
preceding the accession of Victoria.
[Sidenote: The bishopric of Durham.]
[Sidenote: Avalon and Durham.]
From this survey it appears that by the end of the sixteenth century
the bishopric of Durham was left as the only complete instance of a
palatinate, or kingdom within the kingdom. In the northern marches
the need for such a buffer was longer felt than elsewhere, and the
old political structure remained very much as it had been created
by William I., with the mitred bishop at its head. The great Norman
cathedral, in its position of unequalled grandeur,
"Half house of God,
Half castle 'gainst the Scot,"
still rears its towers in the blue sky to remind us of the stern days
when tartan-clad thousands came swarming across the Tweed, to fall in
heaps before the longbow at Halidon Hill and Neville's Cross and on
many another field of blood. When the king of Scots came to be king of
England, this principality of Durham afforded an instance of a dominion
thoroughly English yet semi-independent, unimpeachable for loyalty but
distinct in its administration. It was not strange, therefore, that it
should have served as a pattern for colonial governments to be set up
in the New World. For such governments virtual independence combined
with hearty allegiance was the chief desideratum, a fact which in later
days George III. unfortunately forgot. From the merely military point
of view a colony in the American wilderness stood in at least as much
need of palatine authority as any frontier district in the Old World.
Accordingly, when it was decided to entrust the work of founding an
American colony to a nobleman with his clientage of followers, an
example of the needful organization was already furnished by the great
northern bishopric. Calvert's province in Newfoundland, which received
the name of Avalon,[123] was to be modelled after the palatinate of
Durham, and the powers granted to its lord proprietor were perhaps the
most extensive ever bestowed by the English crown upon any subject.
[Sidenote: Baltimore's colony in Newfoundland.]
A party of colonists went at once to Newfoundland in 1623, but various
affairs detained Lord Baltimore at home until 1627, when he came with
his wife and children to dwell in this New World paradise of Avalon.
The trail of the serpent was already there. A French fleet came to
attack the colony, meditating revenge for Argall's treatment of the
French at Mount Desert and Port Royal, but Baltimore's ships were
heavily armed and well handled, and the Frenchmen got the worst of it.
Then a party of Puritans came to Avalon, and these unbidden guests
were horrified at what they saw. The Rev. Erasmus Stourton returned to
England with a shocking story of how Lord Baltimore not only had the
mass performed every Sunday, but had even allowed a Presbyterian child
to be baptized by a Romish priest. Then the climate of Avalon proved to
be anything but what had been expected. One Captain Richard Whitbourne
had published an enthusiastic book in which he recorded his memories
of June days in Newfoundland, with their delicious wild strawberries
and cherries, the soft air redolent with the fragrance of red and white
roses, the woods vocal with thrushes and other songsters that rivalled
the nightingale; of wild beasts there were none that were harmful, and
"in St. John's harbour he once saw a mermaid."[124] Lord Baltimore
learned that it was not always June in Avalon. He wrote to Charles
I. in August, 1629, as follows: "I have met with difficulties and
encumbrances here which in this place are no longer to be resisted,
but enforce me presently to quit my residence and to shift to some
other warmer climate of this New World, where the winters be shorter
and less rigorous. For here your Majesty may please to understand that
I have found by too dear-bought experience, which other men for their
private interests always concealed from me, that from the middle of
October to the middle of May there is a sad fare of winter upon all
this land; both sea and land so frozen for the greater part of the time
as they are not penetrable, no plant or vegetable thing appearing out
of the earth until the beginning of May, nor fish in the sea; beside
the air so intolerable cold as it is hardly to be endured. By means
whereof, and of much salt meat, my house hath been an hospital all this
winter; of a hundred persons fifty sick at a time, myself being one,
and nine or ten of them died. Hereupon I have had strong temptations
to leave all proceedings in plantations, and being much decayed in
my strength, to retire myself to my former quiet; but my inclination
carrying me naturally to these kind of works, and not knowing how
better to employ the poor remainder of my days than ... to further,
the best I may, the enlarging your Majesty's empire in this part of
the world, I am determined to commit this place to fishermen that
are able to encounter storms and hard weather, and to remove myself
with some forty persons to your Majesty's dominion Virginia; where,
if your Majesty will please to grant me a precinct of land, with such
privileges as the king your father ... was pleased to grant me here, I
shall endeavour to the utmost of my power, to deserve it."[125]
[Sidenote: Baltimore's visit to Virginia.]
To this letter the king returned a gracious reply, in which he advised
Lord Baltimore, for the sake of his own comfort and peace of mind, to
give up such arduous kind of work and return to England; but before
this reply reached Avalon, its proprietor had sailed for Virginia, with
Lady Baltimore and the children, and a small retinue of servants and
followers. He wished to see that country with his own eyes and learn
if it were really fit for his purposes. On the first day of October,
1629, he arrived at Jamestown, where he found the assembly in session.
That versatile physician, Dr. Pott, so skilled in "epidemicals" and
strong waters and afterward convicted of lifting cattle, was then
acting as governor. The reception given to Lord Baltimore was anything
but cordial. All good Virginians hated Papists, and this particular
Papist was known to stand in high favour with the king, so that he
might turn out to be dangerous. He had been one of the commissioners
appointed by James I. to look into the affairs of Virginia; what if
he were to persuade Charles I. to turn over the colony into his hands
for safe-keeping? There was really not the slightest danger of such a
thing. Baltimore's wish was not to take possession of a colony already
established, but to found one himself in accordance with his own
ideas. It was not his purpose to become lord over the Virginians, but
their neighbour, who might dwell near them on amicable terms. But the
Virginians did not wish to receive him in any capacity or on any terms,
except as a transient guest. There was an obvious and easy device for
getting rid of him. Dr. Pott and the council tendered to him the oath
of supremacy, which of course he could not take. This oath was a sworn
recognition of the English sovereign as the only supreme authority
throughout the British dominions in all matters ecclesiastical and
spiritual. No Catholic could take such an oath. Baltimore proposed an
alternative declaration of allegiance to which he could swear, but
such a compromise was of course refused. Even had Dr. Pott and the
council felt authorized to assume such responsibility, accommodation
was not what they desired, and the royal favourite was told that he
must sail for England at once. It appears that he met with some very
rude treatment at Jamestown, which does not seem to have been publicly
rebuked until the arrival of the new royal governor, Sir John Harvey,
in the following March; for on the records of the assembly for March
25, 1630, occurs the entry: "Thomas Tindall to be pilloried two hours,
for giving my Lord Baltimore the lie and threatening to knock him
down." It is evident, however, that such unseemly conduct could not
have met with approval among respectable people at Jamestown, for when
Baltimore sailed he left his wife and children there. It is clear that
he intended soon to return, and wished to save them the discomforts and
perils of the double voyage. He knew that Virginian hospitality could
be relied on. His purpose of returning must have been well known, for
the secretary of the colony, William Claiborne, was sent to London to
keep an eye upon him and thwart his schemes as far as possible. After
arriving in England, Lord Baltimore found so many hindrances to be
reckoned with that he sent for his family and they followed him by a
later ship.
[Sidenote: The charter of Maryland.]
Baltimore's first request was for a tract of territory lying south of
James River as far as the mouth of the Chowan (or Passamagnus) River
in Albemarle Sound. This province was to be called Carolina, either
in honour of Charles I., or because the name had been given by the
Huguenots in 1562 in honour of Charles IX. of France to a point farther
south on that coast and was vaguely applicable to territory between
Virginia and Florida. A charter conveying this land to Lord Baltimore
had already been made out when Claiborne appeared with his objections,
which were supported by other persons in London who were entertaining
schemes for founding a sugar-planting colony in Carolina. The matter
was discussed in the Privy Council, and Baltimore's attention was
called to the fact that the Dutch were taking possession of the country
between the Hudson and Delaware rivers; would it not therefore be
desirable to found a colony north of the Potomac, and squeeze these
unwelcome intruders into as narrow a space as possible? Baltimore
accepted this suggestion, and a charter was drawn up, granting to him
as lord proprietor the province which received the name of Maryland,
after Charles's Catholic queen, Henriette Marie, in England commonly
called Queen Mary. The charter, which Baltimore drew up with his
own hand, was in the main a copy of the Avalon charter; but before
it had received the royal seal he died, in April, 1632. In June the
charter was issued to his eldest son Cecilius Calvert, second baron of
Baltimore.
[Sidenote: Fate of the Avalon charter.]
In obtaining this new grant of Maryland, the Calverts did not regard
themselves as giving up their hold upon Newfoundland. Cecilius
appointed a governor for Avalon as a fishing station, but in 1637,
with characteristic recklessness, the king granted it to the Marquis
of Hamilton and some other noblemen, on the ground that the charter
had been forfeited by disuse. More or less controversy went on until
1663, when in consequence of a judgment in the courts pronouncing
the Hamilton grant void, Avalon was surrendered to Cecilius. But his
descendants really neglected it, until in 1754 the charter was again
declared forfeited, and the crown resumed its rights over the whole of
that large island.
[Sidenote: Character of the first Lord Baltimore.]
It seems to have been the physical hardships sustained in Newfoundland
that cut off the first Lord Baltimore prematurely in his fifty-third
year and prevented his witnessing the success of the enterprise which
he had so much at heart. His plan was to found in the New World a
commonwealth where Catholics might find a welcome refuge from the
oppressive legislation to which they were subjected in England. It
was a plan that could be carried out only by adopting a policy of
universal toleration utterly unknown in that age outside of the
Netherlands. It called for the utmost sagacity and tact, and was
likely to require on the part of the ruler all the well-nigh royal
powers with which Lord Baltimore had been endowed. Though the scheme
was left for the son to put into successful operation, it was devised
by the father and stamps him as no ordinary man. It is right that he
should be honoured as the first founder of Maryland. His portrait,
painted for Lord Bacon by the illustrious Daniel Mytens, is now in the
gallery of the Earl of Verulam, and there is a fine copy of it in the
state-house at Annapolis. The face is courteous and amiable, albeit
somewhat melancholy, and shows refinement and intelligence, as well as
the honesty for which he was noted. George Calvert's integrity was such
that throughout his public life men respected and trusted him without
distinction of party. Of the sincerity of his religious feelings one
gets a glimpse in such characteristic passages as the following, from
a letter to his friend, the great Earl of Strafford: "All things,
my lord, in this world pass away; wife, children, honours, wealth,
friends, and what else is dear to flesh and blood. They are but lent
us till God please to call for them back again, that we may not esteem
anything our own, or set our hearts upon anything but Him alone, who
only remains forever."[126]
[Sidenote: Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore.]
Of the early life of the son, Cecilius Calvert, very little is known.
He was born in 1606 and entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1621,
but there is no record of his having taken a degree. He was hardly
more than eighteen years old when he became the husband of Lady Anne
Arundel, whose name is left upon one of the counties of Maryland,
and whose portrait by Vandyck, preserved in Wardour Castle, shows
her to have been one of the most beautiful women of her time. An
engraved portrait of Cecilius, made in 1657 and now in possession of
the Maryland Historical Society, gives us the impression of great
sagacity and power, with the repose that comes from undisturbed
self-control. There is perhaps more astuteness than in the father's
face, but the look is also frank, as well as lofty and refined.
Through many difficulties the plan conceived by George Calvert was
put into operation by Cecilius, who is to be regarded as preëminently
the founder of Maryland. His strong personality is impressed upon the
whole history of that interesting community; yet singularly enough, the
second Lord Baltimore never visited the colony to which the labours of
his long life were devoted. He cherished at first an intention of going
out with the first party of colonists, but finding that London fairly
swarmed with enemies to the enterprise, he found it most prudent to
stay there and contend with them. This was only the beginning of long
years of arduous work in which the right time for leaving England never
came, and the Moses of this new migration and fresh departure in the
way of founding states was at last gathered unto his fathers without
ever having set foot in the Promised Land.
[Sidenote: A new type of colonial government.]
In two ways the founding of Maryland was a new departure in methods
of colonization. In the first place, it introduced into America a new
type of colonial government. The Spanish and French colonies were
simple despotisms administered by viceroyal governors, sometimes
with advisory councils, sometimes partly held in check by an officer
called the intendant, who was himself a counter-despot. The government
of Virginia after the suppression of the Company was called a crown
government because the governor and council were appointed by the king;
it was not a despotism, because there was an assembly elected by the
people, without whose consent no taxes could be assessed or collected.
The bond of connection with the mother country was loose but real. A
contrast was afforded by Massachusetts, which under its first charter,
from 1629 to 1684, was a true republic, with governor, council, and
assembly all elected within the colony, so that the administration
could move on quite independently of any action in England. In the
proprietary governments, of which Maryland was the first example, the
lord proprietor stepped into the place of the crown, while a charter,
which might be forfeited in case of abuse, made it impossible for him
to become an absolute monarch. The elective legislature of Maryland,
which in point of seniority ranks third in America, next after Virginia
and Massachusetts, was expressly provided for in the charter. The
lord proprietor's sovereignty was limited by this elected assembly of
freemen, but his dependence upon the king of England was little more
than nominal. In token of allegiance and homage he was to send to the
king each year two Indian arrows. His rent was to be one fifth part of
all gold or silver mined in Maryland, but as no precious metals were
found there, this rent amounted to nothing. Moreover, whenever it might
seem necessary, the oath of allegiance might be administered to any
of the inhabitants. Saving this formal recognition of his overlord,
the lord proprietor was virtually king in Maryland. Laws passed by the
assembly became valid as soon as he had signed them, and did not need
to be seen by the king. In case the assembly could not conveniently be
brought together in an emergency, he could issue ordinances by himself,
analogous to the orders of the Privy Council. He could coin money and
grant titles of nobility, he could create courts, appoint judges, and
pardon criminals. It was moreover expressly stipulated that within
the limits of Maryland no taxes could be either assessed or collected
by any British government. Finally the lord proprietorship was vested
in Cecilius Calvert and his heirs, and in point of fact was exercised
by them with some interruptions for five generations; so that the
government of colonial Maryland was really a hereditary constitutional
monarchy.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical powers of the lord proprietor.]
Thus Lord Baltimore introduced into America a new and quite remarkable
type of colonial government. But in the second place his attempt to
inaugurate a policy of complete religious toleration was a still
more memorable departure from familiar methods. Among the express
provisions of the charter there was nothing that looked toward such
complete toleration. Any express toleration of Catholics would have
ruined the whole scheme at the start. The words of the charter were
conveniently vague. In the original charter of Avalon the lord
proprietor was entrusted with "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 license and faculty of erecting and founding churches, chapels,
and places of worship, in convenient and suitable places, within the
premises, and of causing the same to be dedicated and consecrated
according to the ecclesiastical laws of England." This Avalon grant
of 1623 was made when Sir George Calvert was still a member of the
English church; it empowered him to found Anglican churches, but did
not expressly prohibit him from founding Romanist or Nonconformist
places of worship along with the others if he should see fit. Now
exactly the same words were repeated in the Maryland charter, although
it was generally known that Lord Baltimore intended to make that
colony an asylum for such English Catholics as wished to escape from
their grievances at home. The fact that no prohibition was inserted
shows that the king connived at Baltimore's scheme, perhaps through
sympathy with his Catholic queen. None of the Stuarts were fierce
Protestants, and it is worth noting that it was at the king's request
that the colony was named Maryland. Mr. Gardiner's opinion seems well
sustained, that "the phrases of the charter were intended to cover a
secret understanding between Baltimore and the king."[127]
[Sidenote: Religious toleration in Maryland.]
Starting with such a charter, religious toleration in Maryland was a
happy product of circumstances. In view of the regal powers wielded by
Lord Baltimore it was not easy for the Protestant settlers to oppress
the Catholics; while, on the other hand, if the Catholic settlers had
been allowed to annoy the Protestants, it would forthwith have raised
such a storm in England as would have overwhelmed the lord proprietor
and blasted his enterprise. The situation thus created was improved
to the best advantage by the strong common-sense and unfailing tact
of Cecilius Calvert. It is not likely that he had arrived at such
advanced views of the entire separation of church and state as those
which were set forth with such luminous cogency by Roger Williams, but
there was a statesmanlike instinct in him that led him in a similar
direction. In point of religious toleration Rhode Island unquestionably
holds the foremost place among the colonies, while next after it come
Quaker Pennsylvania, with New Netherland, which for its brief season
maintained the wholesome Dutch traditions. There are some respects in
which Maryland's record may vie with the brightest, but her success was
not attained without struggles. We shall presently have occasion to see
how curiously her beginnings were complicated with the affairs of her
elder sister Virginia and with some phases of the Puritan revolution.
[Sidenote: First settlement at St. Mary's.]
If Lord Baltimore felt obliged himself to stay in England, he was
able to send excellent agents to America in the persons of his
younger brothers, Leonard and George Calvert. The former he appointed
governor of Maryland. The most important member of the council was
Thomas Cornwallis, of an ancient and highly honourable London family,
the same to which in later days belonged the Earl Cornwallis who
surrendered an army to George Washington at Yorktown.[128] Leonard
Calvert's ships were the Ark, of 300 tons burthen, with its attendant
pinnace, the Dove, of 50 tons; and his company comprised 20 "gentlemen
adventurers" with about 300 labourers. So alarmed were London people
at the expedition that it took the ships a full month to get away from
the Thames River. All kinds of rumours flew about. It was assumed that
all Catholics must be in league with Spain and that these ships must
be concerned in some foul conspiracy against the English colonies in
America. At the last moment a great fuss was made in the Star Chamber,
and Coke sent an order post-haste to Admiral Pennington commanding the
channel fleet to stop the ships at Dover. The oath of supremacy was
administered, and we hear of 128 persons taking it at one time. It is
generally believed that the majority of the company were Protestants;
the leaders were nearly all Catholics, including the amiable Jesuit,
Father Andrew White, who has left us in quaint and very charming Latin
a full narrative of the voyage.[129] The ships finally started on the
22d of November, 1633, stopped for a while in January at Barbadoes,
and on the 27th of February reached Point Comfort, where a letter from
the king ensured them courteous treatment at the hands of Governor
Harvey. With a fresh stock of supplies they sailed up Chesapeake Bay
and into the broad Potomac, and presently on a little wooded island
which they called St. Clement's--since dwindled to the mere vestige of
a sand-bank--they celebrated Mass for the first time in English America
on the 25th of March, 1634.
[Sidenote: Relations with the Indians.]
[Illustration: THE PALATINATE OF MARYLAND]
On a bluff overlooking the deep and broad St. Mary's River the settlers
found an Indian village, which they bought from its occupants with
steel hatchets and hoes and pieces of cloth. These Indians were a tribe
of Algonquins, who had been so persecuted by their terrible Iroquois
neighbours, the Susquehannocks, that they were already intending to
move away to some safer region; so they welcomed the white purchasers
and the chance for buying steel hatchets. Leonard Calvert was as
scrupulously just in his dealings with red men as William Penn in later
days, and like Penn he was exceptionally favoured by the circumstances
of his Indian neighbours. After the Algonquins had departed from St.
Mary's, the fierce Susquehannocks to the northward were so hard pressed
by their hostile kinsmen of the Five Nations, that they were only too
glad to live on amicable terms with the settlers of Maryland. Thus
one of the most formidable difficulties in the way of American
colonization was removed at the start.
[Sidenote: Prosperity of the settlement.]
At St. Mary's, moreover, there was no Starving Time. The land had
so long been cleared by the Indians for their own cornfields that
Calvert's settlers at once began planting for themselves. Father White
speaks with approval of two native dishes which the Indians call "pone"
and "hominy," and from their squaws the English women soon learned how
to bake and fry these viands to perfection. In the course of the very
first autumn the Marylanders were able to export a shipload of corn to
New England in exchange for a cargo of salted codfish.[130] Cattle and
swine were obtained from Virginia, and soon the neighbourhood of St.
Mary's was covered with thrifty and smiling farms. New colonists came
quite steadily, and presently from St. Mary's the plantations spread
about the shores of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. The first
assembly was convened and the first laws were enacted in 1635, and
when Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, died, just forty years afterward, his
Maryland had grown to be a prosperous community of 20,000 souls.
Some of the more important details of this growth will form part of our
story. At present we have to consider somewhat more closely the nature
of this palatinate government, and the modifications which it underwent
in its transfer from England to America.
[Sidenote: Constitution of Durham: the receiver-general.]
The Bishop of Durham was feudal landlord of the territory in his
bishopric, and the most considerable part of his revenue came
from rents.[131] Until 1660 he also received a fluctuating but
not insignificant income from such feudal incidents as escheats,
forfeitures, and wardships. The rents and feudal dues were collected by
the bailiffs, each in his bailiwick, and were by them paid over to the
receiver-general, who was superintendent of the palatinate's finances.
As for Durham's share of the national taxes, Parliament simply
determined the amount; the bishop's government decided how it should be
raised and his constables collected it. The only taxes collected by the
king's officers were the customs.
[Sidenote: Lord lieutenant and high sheriff.]
After 1536 the militia force of Durham, like that of other counties,
was commanded by an officer known as lord lieutenant. Formerly the
command of the militia and collecting and disbursing of revenue
were concentrated in the hands of the high sheriff, who continued
to be nominally the superior officer over the lord lieutenant and
receiver-general, while his actual duties were restricted, like those
of sheriffs in other counties, to enforcing the decisions of the
courts. But whereas all other sheriffs were crown officers, the high
sheriff of Durham was accountable only to the bishop.
[Sidenote: Chancellor of temporalities.]
[Sidenote: The halmote.]
[Sidenote: The seneschal.]
[Sidenote: The bishop's council.]
The only officer of higher dignity than the high sheriff was the
chancellor of temporalities, who exercised a twofold function. He was
the bishop's chief minister and head of the civil government, and he
presided over the bishop's high court of chancery. Below this high
tribunal there were two kinds of courts. The one was like the ordinary
courts of quarter sessions, composed of justices of the peace, save
that these justices were appointed by the bishop and punished breaches
not of the king's peace but of the bishop's peace. The other kind of
court was one that could be held in any manor of the bishopric. It
was the manorial court or "halmote," the most interesting of these
ancient institutions of Durham. The business of the halmote courts
was to adjust all questions relating to the tenure of land, rights
or easements in land, and such other matters as intimately concerned
the little agricultural community of tenants of the manor. They could
also issue injunctions and inflict sundry penalties. These courts were
held by the seneschal, an officer charged with the general supervision
of manors, but all the tenants of the manor in question could attend
the halmote, and could speak and vote there, so that it was like a
town-meeting. When we add that it could enact by-laws, thus combining
legislative with judicial functions, we see its ancestry disclosed.
This halmote in Durham was a descendant of the ancient folkmote or
primary assembly which our forefathers brought into Britain from their
earlier home in the wilds of northern Germany. In this assembly the
people of Durham preserved their self-government in matters of local
concern. But the circumstances in which the palatinate grew up seem
to have retarded the development of representative government. There
was no shire-mote in Durham, attended by selected men from every manor
or parish or township, as in the other counties of England. Instead
of laws enacted by such a representative body, there were ordinances
passed by the bishop in his council, which was composed of the
principal magistrates already mentioned, and of such noblemen or other
prominent persons as might choose to come or such as might be invited
by the bishop. It thus resembled in miniature a witenagemote or house
of lords. The bishops of Durham seem to have been in general responsive
to public opinion in their little world, and it does not appear that
the people fared worse than they would have done with a representative
assembly. The bishop was not an autocrat, but a member of a great
ecclesiastical body, and if he made himself unpopular it was quite
possible to take steps that would lead to his removal.
[Sidenote: National representation.]
[Sidenote: Limitations upon autonomy.]
The lack of representative institutions in Durham, coupled with its
semi-independence, long retarded its participation in the work of
national legislation. The bishop, of course, sat in the House of
Lords, but not until the reign of Charles II. was this county palatine
represented in the House of Commons. The change was inaugurated by
Cromwell, under whose protectorship the palatine privileges were taken
away, and Durham, reduced to the likeness of other counties, elected
its members of Parliament. In 1660 the restored monarchy undid this
change and replaced the bishop, although with his palatinate privileges
slightly shorn. In 1675 Durham began to be regularly represented in
the House of Commons, but that date was subsequent to the founding of
the Maryland palatinate. At the time when Lord Baltimore's charter was
issued, the bonds of connection between Durham and the rest of England
were three: 1. the bishop was a tenant _in capite_ of the crown,
besides being an officer of the Church and a member of the House of
Lords; 2. the county regularly paid its share of the national taxes;
and 3. cases in litigation between the bishop and his subjects could be
appealed to the Court of Exchequer in London. Saving these important
limitations, Durham was independent. The only way in which the king
could act within its limits was by addressing the bishop, who by way
of climax to his many attributes of sovereignty was endowed with the
powers of coining money, chartering towns, and exercising admiralty
jurisdiction over his seacoast.
[Sidenote: The palatinate type in America.]
As I have already observed it was natural that in founding new
governments in America, this familiar example of the Durham palatinate
should be made to serve as a model. In point of fact not only Maryland,
but every colony afterwards founded, except in New England, was
at first a palatinate, with either a single lord proprietor or a
board of proprietors at its head. Of the four colonies older than
Maryland, three--English Virginia and Massachusetts, and Dutch New
Netherland--were founded through the instrumentality of charters
granted to joint-stock companies, organized really or ostensibly for
commercial purposes; one, Plymouth, was founded by the people and
ignored by the crown until finally suppressed by it. Of the four New
England colonies younger than Maryland, all were founded by the people
themselves, one of them, New Haven, was soon suppressed, another, New
Hampshire, was turned into a royal province, the other two, Connecticut
and Rhode Island, were for the most part let alone. The governments
of all the other colonies began as proprietary governments. This was
the case with New York and the two Jerseys after the English conquest
of New Netherland; it was the case with Pennsylvania and Delaware,
with the two Carolinas, and with Georgia. One and all of these were
variations upon the theme first adopted in the founding of Maryland.
All were based upon the palatinate principle, with divers modifications
suggested by experience as likely to be more acceptable to the
proprietors or to the crown. And just as the crown, for purposes of
its own and without regard to the wishes of the people, changed the
governments of Virginia and New Hampshire and extinguished those of New
Haven and Plymouth; so in nearly every case we find the people becoming
so dissatisfied with the proprietary governments that one after another
they are overturned and the palatinates become transformed into royal
provinces. We shall, therefore, find it profitable to trace the history
of the palatinate principle in America through its initial theme and
its subsequent variations.
[Sidenote: Similarities between Durham and Maryland: the governor.]
That initial theme was mainly an echo of the Old World music, but the
differences were not without importance. In administrative machinery
there was a strong resemblance between Maryland and Durham. The
governor of Maryland was Lord Baltimore's chief minister, the head of
the civil administration of the colony. He also presided over its court
of chancery, and in this double capacity he resembled the chancellor
of temporalities. But, as befitted the head of a community planted in
a hostile wilderness, he added to these functions those of the lord
lieutenant and was commander-in-chief of the militia. Laws passed by
the assembly required his signature to make them valid, and thus he
possessed the power of veto; but he could not assent to a law repealing
any law to which the lord proprietor had assented. Such matters had to
be referred to the lord proprietor, whose prerogatives were jealously
guarded, while the extensive powers accorded to the governor were such
as convenience dictated in view of the fact that the lord proprietor
was absent in England. An instance of the principle and its limits is
furnished by the governor's pardoning power, which extended to all
offences except treason.[132]
[Sidenote: Secretary: surveyor-general.]
[Sidenote: Muster master-general: sheriffs.]
The personage next in importance to the governor was the secretary, who
as receiver and disburser of revenues resembled the receiver-general
of Durham, but to these functions he added those of recorder and judge
of probate, and sometimes also those of attorney-general. Next came
the surveyor-general, whose functions in determining metes and bounds
and in supervising manorial affairs, resembled those of the Durham
seneschal. Then there was a lieutenant commander of militia known as
master-general of the muster. In each county there was a sheriff,
who, in addition to such functions as we are familiar with, collected
all taxes, held all elections, and made the returns. These four
officers--the secretary, surveyor-general, muster master-general, and
sheriff--were paid by fees, the amount of which was determined by the
assembly, which thus exercised some control over them; but the governor
received a salary from the lord proprietor, and was to that extent
independent of the legislature.[133]
[Sidenote: The courts.]
Of courts there was one in each county, but besides this a considerable
number of manors were created, and each manor had its court baron and
court leet for the transaction of local business. Small civil cases
involving less than the worth of 1,200 pounds of tobacco, and criminal
cases not involving the death penalty, were tried in the county courts.
Above these was the provincial court, which dealt with common law,
chancery, or admiralty, as the case might be. The judges of this court
were all members of the council, to which the secretary and other chief
executive officers belonged, while the governor presided alike over
the provincial court and over the council. Appeals could be taken from
the provincial court to the council sitting as the upper house in the
assembly, after the analogy of the appellate jurisdiction of the House
of Lords; but this virtually meant that a case once decided could be
tried over again by the same judges with a few colleagues added.
[Sidenote: The primary assembly.]
[Sidenote: Initiative in legislation.]
The assembly, at the mention of which we have thus arrived, was the
principal point of difference between the palatinate of Maryland and
that of Durham. The governor of Maryland, like the bishop of Durham,
had his council, consisting solely, as the other consisted chiefly,
of high officials; but in Maryland there was popular representation,
while in Durham there was not. At first, however, the popular house
was not a representative but a primary assembly, and its sittings
were not separate from those of the council. In the first assembly,
which met at St. Mary's in February, 1635, all the freemen, or all who
chose to come, were gathered in the same room with Leonard Calvert
and his council. They drew up a body of laws and sent it to England
for the lord proprietor's assent, which was refused. The ground of
the refusal was far more than the mere technicality which on a hasty
glance it might seem to be. Cecilius refused because the charter gave
the lord proprietor the power of making laws with the assent of the
freemen, but did not give such power to the freemen with the assent
of the lord proprietor. In other words, the initiative in legislation
must always come from above, not from below. Obviously there could
be no higher authority than Cecilius as to what the charter really
intended. But the assembly of Maryland insisted upon the right of
initiating legislation, and Cecilius was wise enough to yield the point
gracefully. He consented, in view of the length of time required for
crossing the ocean, that laws enacted by the assembly should at once
become operative and so remain unless vetoed by him. But he reserved to
himself the right of veto without limitation in time. In other words,
he could at any time annul a law, and this prerogative was one that
might become dangerous.
[Sidenote: The representative assembly.]
In 1638 the primary assembly was abandoned as cumbrous. For purposes
of the military levy the province was divided into hundreds, and each
hundred sent a representative to the assembly at St. Mary's. At a later
date the county came to be the basis of representation, as in Virginia.
For some time the representatives sat with the council, as at first in
Massachusetts and Virginia; but in 1650 the representatives began to
sit as a lower house, while the council formed an upper house. As there
was a tendency, which went on increasing, for the highest offices to be
filled by Calverts and their kinsmen, the conditions were soon at hand
for an interesting constitutional struggle between the two houses. It
was to be seen whether the government was to be administered for the
Calverts or for the people, and to the story of this struggle we shall
presently come.
[Sidenote: Regal power of Lord Baltimore.]
As a result of our survey it appears that Lord Baltimore occupied a
far more independent position than any bishop of Durham. Not only was
he exempt from imperial taxation, but in case of a controversy between
himself and his subjects no appeal could be taken to any British court.
His power seemed to approach more nearly to despotism than that of any
king of England, save perhaps Henry VIII. The one qualifying feature
was the representative assembly, the effects of which time was to show
in unsuspected ways. From various circumstances mentioned in the course
of the present chapter there resulted a strange series of adventures,
which will next claim our attention.
FOOTNOTES:
[122] Joyce, _Irish Names of Places_, Dublin, 1869, p. 322.
[123] From the so-called isle of Avalon, in Somerset, reputed to be the
place where Christianity was first preached in Britain; the site of
the glorious minster of Glastonbury, where rest the ashes of Edgar the
Peaceful and Edmund Ironside.
[124] Browne's _Calverts_, p. 17.
[125] Browne's _Calverts_, p. 25.
[126] Browne's _Calverts_, p. 29.
[127] Gardiner, _History of England_, viii. 179.
[128] Neill's _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 99.
[129] White's _Relatio Itineris_, publ. by Maryland Hist. Soc.
[130] Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._ iii. 526.
[131] There is an excellent summary of the institutions of Durham
in Bassett's "Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina," _Johns
Hopkins University Studies_, vol. xii. For fuller accounts see Surtees,
_History of the County Palatine of Durham_; also _Surtees Society
Publications_, vols. xxxii., lxxxii., lxxxiv.
[132] For an account of the Maryland constitution, see Sparks,
[133] "Causes of the Maryland Revolution of 1689," _Johns Hopkins
University Studies_, vol. xiv.
CHAPTER IX.
LEAH AND RACHEL.
[Sidenote: William Claiborne and his projects].
WE have already had occasion to observe that, while from the outset
Lord Baltimore's enterprise found many enemies in England, it was
at the same time regarded with no friendly feelings in Virginia. We
have seen the Virginians sending to London their secretary of state,
William Claiborne, to obstruct and thwart the Calverts in their attempt
to obtain a grant of territory in America. For Claiborne there were
interests of his own involved, besides those of the colony which he
represented. This William Claiborne, younger son of an ancient and
honourable family in Westmoreland, had come to Virginia in 1621 and
prospered greatly, acquiring large estates and winning the respect
and confidence of his fellow planters. By 1627 he had begun to engage
in trade with the natives along the shores of Chesapeake Bay and the
Potomac and Susquehanna rivers. Such traffic, if well managed, was
lucrative, since with steel knives and hatchets, or with ribbons and
beads, one could buy furs which would fetch high prices in England. To
the enterprising Claiborne it seemed worth while to extend this trade
far to the north. His speculative vision took in the Delaware and
Hudson rivers and even included New England and Nova Scotia. So he
entered into an arrangement with a firm of London merchants, Clobery &
Company, to supply them with furs and other such eligible commodities
as might be obtained from the Indians, and in 1631 he obtained a royal
license for trading in any and all parts of North America not already
preëmpted by monopolies. This was done while he was in London opposing
Lord Baltimore. The place most prominently mentioned in the license was
Nova Scotia, and it was obtained under the seal of Scotland, from the
Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir William Alexander, to whom Nova
Scotia had some time before been granted. On returning to Virginia,
where Sir John Harvey had lately superseded the convivial Dr. Pott as
governor, Claiborne obtained a further license to trade with any of the
English colonies and with the Dutch on Henry Hudson's river.
[Sidenote: Kent Island occupied by Claiborne.]
Armed with these powers, Claiborne proceeded to make a settlement upon
an island which he had already, before his visit to London, selected
for a trading post. It was Kent Island, far up in Chesapeake Bay,
almost as far north as the mouth of the Patapsco River. Here dwellings
were built, and mills for grinding corn, while gardens were laid out,
and orchards planted, and farms were stocked with cattle.[134] A
clergyman was duly appointed, to minister to the spiritual needs of the
little settlement, and in the next year, 1632, it was represented in
the House of Burgesses by Captain Nicholas Martian, a patentee of the
land where Yorktown now stands.
[Sidenote: Conflicting grants.]
When in that same year the news of the charter granted to Lord
Baltimore arrived in Virginia, it was greeted with indignation. No
doubt there was plenty of elbow-room between the old colony and the
land assigned to the new-comers, but the example of Claiborne shows
what far-reaching plans could be cherished down on James River. The
Virginians had received a princely territory, and did not like to see
it arbitrarily curtailed. There was no telling where that sort of
thing might end. According to the charter of 1609, Virginia extended
200 miles northward from Old Point Comfort,[135] or about as far north
as the site of Chester in Pennsylvania; which would have left no room
for Maryland or Delaware. That charter had indeed been annulled in
1624, but both James I. and Charles I. had expressly declared that
the annulling of the charter simply abolished the sovereignty that
had been accorded to the Virginia Company, and did not infringe or
diminish the territorial rights of the colony. Undoubtedly the grant
to the Calverts was one of the numerous instances in early American
history in which the Stuart kings gave away the same thing to different
parties. Or perhaps we might better say that they made grants without
duly heeding how one might overlap and encroach upon another. This was
partly the result of carelessness, partly of ignorance and haziness
of mind; flagrant examples of it were the grants to Robert Gorges in
Massachusetts and to Samuel Gorton in Rhode Island. No serious harm
has come of this recklessness, but it was the cause of much bickering
in the early days, echoes of which may still be heard in silly pouts
and sneers between the grown-up children of divers neighbour states.
As regards the grant to Lord Baltimore, a protest from Virginia was
not only natural but as inevitable as sunrise. It was discussed in the
Star Chamber in July, 1633, and the decision was not to disturb Lord
Baltimore's charter; the Virginians might, if they liked, bring suit
against him in the ordinary course of law. From this decision came many
heart-burnings between Leah and her younger sister Rachel, as a quaint
old pamphleteer calls Virginia and Maryland.[136]
[Sidenote: Claiborne's resistance.]
[Sidenote: Lord Baltimore's instructions.]
[Sidenote: The Virginia council supports Claiborne.]
Viewed in the light of all the circumstances, it is difficult to
avoid seeing in Claiborne's occupation of Kent Island a strategic
move. Considered as such, it was bold and not ill-judged. With his
far-reaching schemes the Susquehanna River was a highway which would
enable him to compete with the Dutch for the northwestern fur trade.
By establishing himself on Kent Island he might command the approach
to that highway. The maxim that actual possession is nine points in
the law was in his favour. If the Star Chamber had decided to uphold
Virginia's wholesale claim to the territory granted her in 1609,
Claiborne would have been master of the situation. Even with the
decision as rendered, his own case was far from hopeless. In the autumn
of 1633 he petitioned the king to protect his interests and those of
Virginia in Kent Island. He contended that Baltimore's charter gave
jurisdiction only over territory unsettled and unimproved,--_hactenus
in culta_,--whereas Kent Island had been settled as a part of Virginia
and heavy expenses incurred there before that charter had been issued.
In sending this petition it was hoped that by resolutely keeping hold
upon the strategic point it might be possible to make Lord Baltimore
reconsider his plans and take his settlers to some other region than
the shores of Chesapeake Bay. But this hope was dashed in February,
1634, when Leonard Calvert with the first party of settlers arrived
in those waters. Claiborne's petition had not yet been answered, but
Lord Baltimore's instructions to his brother were conceived in a
conciliatory spirit. Leonard was to see Claiborne and offer him all the
aid in his power toward building up the new settlement on Kent Island,
at the same time reminding him that the place was in Baltimore's
territory and not a part of Virginia. In other words, Claiborne was
welcome to the property, only he must hold it as a tenant of the lord
proprietor of Maryland, not as a tenant of the king in Virginia. While
the Ark and the Dove were halting at anchor off Old Point Comfort, and
while Leonard Calvert was ashore exchanging courtesies with Governor
Harvey, he communicated this message to Claiborne. At the next meeting
of the council, Claiborne asked his fellow-councillors what he should
do in the matter. In reply they wondered that he should ask such
a question. Was not the case perfectly clear? Was there any reason
why they should surrender Kent Island, more than any other part of
Virginia? No, they would keep it until his Majesty's pleasure should
be known, and meanwhile they would treat the Maryland company civilly
and expected to be so treated by them. Behind this answer there was
much bad feeling. Not only were the Virginians angry at the curtailment
of their domains, not only were they alarmed as well as angry at the
arrival of Papists in their neighbourhood, but they were greatly
disgusted because Lord Baltimore's charter gave him far more extensive
trading privileges than they possessed. Calvert's message to Claiborne
had signified that before trading any further in the upper parts of
Chesapeake Bay he must obtain a license from Maryland. Assured now of
support from Virginia, Claiborne returned an answer in which he refused
in any way to admit Lord Baltimore's sovereignty.
[Sidenote: Complications with the Indians.]
Leonard's instructions had been in case of such a refusal not to molest
Claiborne for at least a year. But soon complications arose. The
settlers at St. Mary's observed indications of distrust or hostility
on the part of a neighbouring Algonquin tribe, known as the Patuxents;
so they appealed to one Captain Henry Fleete, who understood the
Algonquin language, to learn what was the matter. This Captain Fleete
wished to supplant Claiborne in the fur trade and may have welcomed a
chance of discrediting him with the Marylanders. At all events, he
reported that the Indians had been told that the Marylanders were not
Englishmen but Spaniards, and for this calumny, which might have led to
the massacre of the new-comers, he undertook to throw the blame upon
Claiborne. In the substance of this story there is a strong appearance
of truth. On the Virginia coast in those days common parlance was not
nice as to discriminating between Papists of any kind and Spaniards,
and one can easily see how from ordinary gossip the Indians may have
got their notion. There is no reason for casting atrocious imputations
upon Claiborne, who was examined in June, 1634, by a joint commission
of Virginians and Marylanders, and completely exonerated. But before
the news of this verdict reached London, the charge that Claiborne
was intriguing with the Indians had been carried to Lord Baltimore
and evidently alarmed him. Convinced that forbearance had ceased to
be a virtue, he sent word to his brother to seize Kent Island, arrest
Claiborne, and hold him prisoner until further instructions.
[Sidenote: Reprisals and skirmishes.]
This was in September, 1634. News of the message came to the ears of
Claiborne's London partners, Clobery & Company, and they petitioned
the king for protection in the possession of their island. Charles
accordingly instructed Lord Baltimore not to molest Claiborne and his
people, and he sent a letter to the governor and council of Virginia,
in which he declared that the true intention or the charter which
he had granted to Baltimore would not justify that nobleman in any
interference with Kent Island and its settlers. So the winter wore
away without incident, but early in April, 1635, one of Claiborne's
ships, commanded by one Thomas Smith, was seized in the Patuxent River
by Captain Fleete; she was condemned for trading without a license, and
was confiscated and sold with all her cargo. Claiborne then sent out an
armed sloop, the Cockatrice, to make reprisals upon Maryland shipping;
but Calvert was wide awake and sent Cornwallis with a stronger force
of two armed pinnaces, which overtook the Cockatrice in Pocomoke River
and captured her after a brisk skirmish in which half a dozen men were
killed and more wounded. That was on April 23, and on May 10 there was
another fight in the harbour of Great Wighcocomoco, at the mouth of the
Pocomoke, in which Thomas Smith commanded for Claiborne and defeated
the Marylanders with more bloodshed.
[Sidenote: Complaints against Governor Harvey.]
In the midst of these unseemly quarrels the kingdom of Virginia
witnessed something like a revolution. We have already had occasion
to mention Sir John Harvey, the governor who came in March, 1630,
after the brief administration of that versatile practitioner, Dr.
John Pott. Harvey was not long in getting into trouble. It was noticed
at first that his manners were intolerably rude. He strutted about
Jamestown as if he were on a quarter deck, and treated the august
members of the council with as little ceremony as if they had been
boot-blacks. On his own confession he once assaulted a councillor and
knocked out some of his teeth "with a cudgel."[137] But it presently
appeared that arrogance was not his worst fault. He was too fond of
money, and not particular as to how it came to him. He had a right
to make grants of land to settlers for a consideration to be paid
into the public treasury; it was charged against him that part of the
consideration found its way into his own pockets. Nor was this all, for
it happened, after the fashion of his royal master, that some of the
lands which he granted were already private property. Besides this,
he seems to have undertaken to draw up laws and proclaim them of his
own authority without submitting them to the assembly; he refused to
render an account of the ways in which he spent the public money; he
had excessive fees charged, multiplied the number of fines beyond all
reason, and took the proceeds or a part of them for his private use and
behoof. In short, he seems to have been a second and more vulgar Argall.
[Sidenote: Rage of Virginians against Maryland.]
Five years of this sort of thing had driven the men of Virginia to the
last pitch of desperation, when the Claiborne imbroglio brought on a
crisis. In obedience to the king's instructions, Harvey showed such
favour as he could to the Maryland settlers, and thus made himself
the more fiercely hated in Virginia. The Kent Island question was one
that bred dissension in families, separated bosom friends, and sowed
seeds of distrust and suspicion far and wide. To speak well of Maryland
was accounted little less than a crime. "Sell cattle to Maryland!"
exclaimed the wrathful planters, "better knock them on the head!"
From pious people this near approach of the Scarlet Woman drew forth
strong words. We are told that one day Captain Samuel Mathews, that
brave gentleman and decorous Puritan, on reading a letter from England,
dashed his hat upon the ground and stamped in fury, shouting "A pox
upon Maryland!"[138]
[Sidenote: An angry parson.]
[Sidenote: The meeting at Warren's house.]
In such a state of things we can imagine what a storm was raised when
Governor Harvey removed from office the able and popular secretary
of state, William Claiborne, and appointed one Richard Kemp in his
place. One lively gleam of vituperation lights up the grave pages
of the colonial records, when Kev. Anthony Panton called Mr. Kemp
a "jackanapes," and told him that he was "unfit for the place of
secretary," and that "his hair-lock was tied up with ribbon as old as
St. Paul's." We shall hereafter see how the outraged secretary nursed
his wrath; what he might have done in its freshness was prevented by a
sudden revolution. The assembly drew up a protest against the king's
attempts at monopolizing the tobacco trade, and Harvey refused to
transmit the protest to England. About the same time the news arrived
of the seizing of Claiborne's ship in Maryland waters. On the petition
of many of the people, a meeting of the assembly was called for May
7, to receive complaints against Sir John Harvey.[139] In the mean
time, on April 27, an indignation meeting was held at the house of
William Warren, in York, where the principal speakers were Nicholas
Martian, formerly member of the House of Burgesses for Kent Island,
Francis Pott, the doctor's brother, and William English, sheriff of
York County. The house where this meeting was held in 1635 seems
to have stood on or near the site of the house afterward owned by
Augustine Moore, where in 1781 the surrender of Lord Cornwallis was
arranged; and by a curious coincidence the speaker Nicholas Martian was
a direct ancestor both of George Washington, who commanded the army of
the United States, and of Thomas Nelson, who commanded the forces of
Virginia, on that memorable occasion.[140]
[Sidenote: Scene in the council.]
[Sidenote: Harvey deposed.]
Next morning Martian, Pott, and English were arrested, and when they
asked the reason why, Governor Harvey politely told them that they
"should know at the gallows." When the council met, the wrathful
governor strode up and down the room, demanding that the prisoners be
instantly put to death by martial law, but the council insisted that no
harm should come to them without a regular trial. Then Harvey with a
baleful frown put the question after the manner of Richard III., "What
do they deserve that have gone about to dissuade the people from their
obedience to his Majesty's substitute?" A young member, George Menefie,
replied with adroit sarcasm that he was too young a lawyer to be
ready with "a suddain opinion" upon such a question. Turning savagely
upon him, Sir John asked what all the fuss was about. "Because of the
detaining of the assembly's protest," said Menefie. Then the governor
struck Menefie heavily upon the shoulder and exclaimed, "I arrest you
on suspicion of treason," whereupon Captain John Utie, roughly seizing
the governor, answered, "And we the like to you, sir!" Samuel Mathews
threw his arms about Harvey and forced him down into a chair, while
that connoisseur in beverages, Dr. Pott, waved his hand at the window,
and in the twinkling of an eye the house was surrounded by armed men.
Mathews then told the helpless governor that he must go to London to
answer charges that would be brought against him. In vain did Harvey
argue and storm. The sequel may best be told in the words of the terse
and bleak entry in the colonial records: "On the 28th of April, 1635,
Sir John Harvey thrust out of his government; and Capt. John West
acts as governor till the king's pleasure known." When the assembly
met on May 7, these proceedings of the council were approved, and
commissioners were appointed to go to London and lay their complaints
before the king. The indignant Harvey went by the same ship, in the
custody of his quondam prisoner, Francis Pott, whom he had been so
anxious to hang without ceremony.
[Sidenote: Harvey's return.]
Such were the incidents of the ever memorable "thrusting out of Sir
John Harvey," the first revolutionary scene that was acted in English
America. When King Charles heard the story he did not feel quite so
much fondness for his trusty and well-beloved burgesses as when he
had been seeking commercial favours from them. He would not receive
their commissioners or hear a word on their side of the case, and he
swore that Sir John Harvey should straightway go back to Virginia as
governor, even were it only for one day. But when it came to acting,
Charles was not quite so bold as his words. Harvey did not return
until nearly two years had elapsed.[141] Then it was the turn of the
rebellious councillors--Utie, Mathews, West, Menefie, and Dr. Pott--to
go to London and defend themselves, while Harvey wreaked mean-spirited
vengeances on his enemies. The day of reckoning had come for Anthony
Panton, the minister who had called Mr. Secretary Kemp a "jackanapes,"
and had, moreover, as it seemed, spoken irreverently of Archbishop
Laud. Panton's conduct was judged to be "mutinous, rebellious, and
riotous,"[142] his estate was confiscated, and he was banished. A
shameful clause was inserted in the sentence, declaring him outlawed
if he should venture to return to Virginia, and authorizing anybody to
kill him at sight; but Harvey afterward tried to disown this clause,
saying that it had been wickedly interpolated by the vindictive Kemp.
[Sidenote: Harvey's fall and death.]
But Harvey's new lease of power was brief. Enemies to the throne were
getting too numerous for comfort, and we may well believe that Charles,
having once vindicated his royal dignity in the matter, was quite
ready to yield. The statements of the councillors under examination
in London no doubt had weight, for no proceedings were taken against
them, but in 1639 the king removed Harvey, and sent the excellent Sir
Francis Wyatt once more to govern Virginia. Harvey's numerous victims
forthwith overwhelmed him with law-suits, his ill-gotten wealth was
quickly disgorged, his estates were sold to indemnify Panton and
others, and the fallen tyrant, bankrupt and friendless, soon sank into
the grave,--such an instance of poetic justice as is seldom realized.
[Sidenote: Evelin sent to Kent Island.]
[Sidenote: Kent Island seized by Calvert.]
It was in December, 1637, during Harvey's second administration, that
the Kent Island troubles were renewed. After Claiborne's victorious
fight at Great Wighcocomoco, in May, 1635, he retained undisturbed
possession of the island, but a quarrel was now brewing between himself
and his London partners, Clobery & Company. They were dissatisfied
because furs did not come in quantities sufficient to repay their
advances to Claiborne. The disputes with the Marylanders had sadly
damaged the business, and the partners sent over George Evelin to look
after their interests, and armed him with power of attorney. They
requested Claiborne to turn over to him the island, with everything
on it, and to come to London and settle accounts. Claiborne tried to
get a bond from Evelin not to surrender the island to Calvert, but
that agent refused to give any assurances, except to express in strong
language his belief that Calvert had no just claim to it. Nothing was
left for Claiborne but to leave Evelin in possession. He did so under
protest, and in May, 1637, sailed for England, where Clobery & Company
immediately brought suit against him. Evelin then went to Virginia and
attached all of Claiborne's property that he could find. Presently,
whether from policy or from conviction, he changed his views as to the
ownership of Kent Island and invited Leonard Calvert to come and take
it. After some hesitation, in December, 1637, Calvert occupied the
premises with forty or fifty armed men and appointed Evelin commandant
of the island. Forthwith so many people were arrested for debts owed to
Clobery & Company that an insurrection ensued, and in February, 1638,
Calvert had to come over again and enforce his authority. Among his
prisoners taken in December was Thomas Smith, the victor in the fight
at Great Wighcocomoco, who was now tried for piracy and hanged, while
the Maryland assembly passed a bill of attainder against Claiborne,
and all his accessible property was seized for the benefit of Lord
Baltimore's treasury.
[Sidenote: Decision is given against Claiborne.]
Soon afterward the final and crushing blow was dealt in London. A Board
of Commissioners for the Plantations had lately been created there,
a germ that in later years was to develop into the well-known body
commonly called the Lords of Trade. To this board the dispute over Kent
Island had been referred, and the decision was rendered in April, 1638.
In the decision the claims of Virginia were ignored, and the matter was
treated like a personal dispute between Claiborne and Lord Baltimore.
The latter had a grant of sovereignty under the seal of England, the
former had merely a trading license under the seal of Scotland, and
this could not be pleaded in bar of the greater claim. Kent Island was
thus adjudged to Lord Baltimore. Crestfallen but not yet conquered, the
sturdy Claiborne returned to Virginia to await the turn of Fortune's
wheel.
[Sidenote: Puritans in Virginia.]
In curious ways the march of events was tending in Claiborne's favour.
At first sight there is no obvious connection between questions of
religion and the ownership of a small wooded island, but it would
be difficult to name any kind of quarrel to which the Evil One has
not contrived to give a religious colouring. By the year 1638 the
population of Virginia had come to contain more than 1,000 Puritans,
or about seven per cent. of the whole. They had begun coming to
Virginia in 1611 with Sir Thomas Dale, whose friend, the Rev. Alexander
Whitaker, the famous "Apostle of Virginia," was a staunch Puritan, son
of an eminent Puritan divine who was Master of St. John's College,
Cambridge. The general reader, who thinks of Whitaker correctly as
a minister of the Church of England, must not forget that in 1611
the Puritans had not separated from the Established Church, but were
striving to reform it from within. As yet there were few Separatists,
save the Pilgrims who had fled to Holland three years before. The
first considerable separation of Puritans occurred when the colony of
Massachusetts Bay was founded in 1629. The great gulf between Puritans
and Churchmen was dug by the Civil War, and the earliest date when it
becomes strictly proper to speak of "Dissenters" is 1662, when the
first parliament of Charles II. passed the Act of Uniformity. In the
earliest days of Virginia, Puritan Churchmen were common there. When in
1617 the good Whitaker was drowned in James River, he was succeeded by
George Keith, who was also a Puritan.[143] Under the administration of
Sandys and Southampton many came. Their chief settlements were south
of James River, at first in Isle of Wight County and afterwards in
Nansemond. Among their principal leaders were Richard Bennett, son of a
wealthy London merchant and afterwards governor of Virginia, and Daniel
Gookin, noted for his bravery in the Indian massacre of 1622.
[Sidenote: Act of Uniformity, 1631.]
[Sidenote: Puritan ministers from New England.]
[Sidenote: New Act of Uniformity, 1643.]
An act of the assembly in 1631 prescribed "that there be a uniformity
throughout this colony both in substance and circumstances to the
canons and constitution of the Church of England." This legislation
probably reveals the hand of William Laud, who had three years before
become bishop of London; and it may be taken to indicate that a large
majority of Virginians had come to disapprove of Puritanism. Probably
the act was not vigorously enforced, for Governor Harvey seems to
have looked with favour upon Puritans, but it may have caused some
of their pastors to quit the colony. In 1641 an appeal for more
ministers was sent to Boston, and in response three clergymen--William
Thompson of Braintree, John Knowles of Watertown, and Thomas James
of New Haven--sailed from Narragansett Bay in December, 1642. Their
little ship was wrecked at Hell Gate and their welcome from the Dutch
at Manhattan was but surly; nevertheless they were able to procure a
new ship, and so, after a wintry voyage of eleven weeks, arrived in
James River.[144] They brought excellent letters of recommendation
from Governor Winthrop to the governor of Virginia, but might as well
have thrown them into the fire, for the new governor of Virginia, who
arrived in 1642, was the famous Sir William Berkeley, a Cavalier of
Cavaliers, a firm believer in the methods of Strafford and Laud, an
implacable foe of Puritanism and all its advocates. At the next meeting
of the assembly, in March, 1643, the following act was passed: "For
the preservation of the purity of doctrine and unity of the Church,
it is enacted that all ministers whatsoever, which shall reside in
the colony, are to be conformed to the orders and constitution of the
Church of England, and not otherwise to be admitted to teach or preach
publicly or privately, and that the Governor and Council do take care
that all non-conformists, upon notice of them, shall be compelled to
depart the colony with all convenience."[145]
[Sidenote: Expulsion of the ministers.]
Armed with this fulmination, Berkeley was not long in getting rid of
the parsons whom Winthrop had commended to his hospitality. Knowles
and James went in April, after some weeks of incessant and successful
preaching but Thompson, "a man of tall and comely presence" as we are
told, stayed through the summer and made many converts, among them the
wayward son of Daniel Gookin, a junior Daniel whose conversion was from
worldliness or perhaps devilry rather than from prelacy. This brand
snatched from the burning by Thompson went to Massachusetts, where
for many years he was superintendent of Indian affairs and won fame
by his character and writings. Thompson's work in Virginia is thus
commemorated by Cotton Mather:--
"A constellation of great converts there
Shone round him, and his heavenly glory were.
Gookin was one of them; by Thompson's pains
Christ and New England a dear Gookin gains."
[Sidenote: Indian massacre of 1644.]
The expulsion of the Boston ministers was the beginning of a
systematic harassing of the Puritans in Virginia. It was strangely
affected by the massacre perpetrated by the Indians in the spring of
1644.[146] We seem carried back to the times of John Smith when we
encounter once more the grim figure of Opekankano alive and on the
war-path. We have no need, however, with some thoughtless writers,
to call him a hundred years old. It was only thirty-six years since
Smith's capture by the Indians, although so much history had been made
that the interval seems much longer. Though a wrinkled and grizzled
warrior, Opekankano need not have been more than sixty or seventy when
he wreaked upon the white men his second massacre, on the eve of Good
Friday, 1644. The victims numbered about 300, but the Indians were
quickly put down by Berkeley, and a new treaty confined them to the
north of York River; any Indian venturing across that boundary, except
as an envoy duly marked with a badge, was liable to be shot at sight.
Opekankano was taken captive and carried on a litter to Jamestown,
whence Berkeley intended to send him to London as a trophy and
spectacle, but before sailing time the old chief was ignobly murdered
by one of his guards. It was the end of the Powhatan confederacy.
[Sidenote: Conflicting views of theodicy.]
Some worthy people interpreted this massacre as a judgment of Heaven
upon the kingdom of Virginia for the sin of harbouring Puritans;
rather a tardy judgment, one would say, coming a year after the
persecution of such heretics had begun in earnest. In Governor
Winthrop's opinion,[147] on the contrary, the sin which received such
grewsome punishment was the expulsion of the Boston ministers, with
other acts of persecution that followed. Rev. Thomas Harrison, the
bigoted Berkeley's bigoted chaplain, saw the finger of God in the
massacre, repented of his own share in the work of persecution, and
upbraided the governor, who forthwith dismissed him. Then Harrison
turned Puritan and went to preaching at Nansemond, in flat defiance
of Berkeley, who ordered and threatened and swore till he was out of
breath, when suddenly business called him over to England.
[Sidenote: Invasion of Maryland by Claiborne and Ingle.]
It was the year of Marston Moor, an inauspicious year for Cavaliers,
but a hopeful time for that patient waiter, William Claiborne. The
governor of Maryland, as well as the governor of Virginia, had gone to
England on business, and while the cats were away the mice did play.
The king ordered that any Parliament ships that might be tarrying
in Maryland waters should forthwith be seized. When this order was
received at St. Mary's, the deputy-governor, Giles Brent, felt bound to
obey it, and as there seemed to be no ships accessible that had been
commissioned by Parliament, he seized the ship of one Richard Ingle, a
tobacco trader who was known to be a Puritan and strongly suspected
of being a pirate. This incident caused some excitement and afforded
the watchful Claiborne his opportunity of revenge. He made visits
to Kent Island and tried to dispel the doubts of the inhabitants by
assuring them that he had a commission from the king.[148] He may have
meant by this some paper given him by Charles I. before the adverse
decision of 1638 and held as still valid by some private logic of his
own. When Governor Calvert returned from England in the autumn of
1644 he learned that Claiborne was preparing to invade his dominions,
along with Ingle, who had brought upon the scene another ship well
manned and heavily armed. It was a curious alliance, inasmuch as
Claiborne had professed to be acting with a royal commission, while
Ingle now boasted of a commission from Parliament. But this trifling
flaw in point of consistency did not make the alliance a weak one.
It is not sure that the invasion was concerted between Claiborne and
Ingle, though doubtless the former welcomed the aid of the latter in
reinstating himself in what he believed to be his right. The invasion
was completely successful. While Claiborne recovered Kent Island, Ingle
captured St. Mary's, and Leonard Calvert was fain to take refuge in
Virginia. During two years of anarchy Ingle and his men roamed about
"impressing" corn and tobacco, cattle and household furniture, stuffing
ships with plunder to be exported and turned into hard cash. The
estates of Cornwallis were especially ill-treated, the Indian mission
was broken up, and good Father White, loaded with irons, was sent to
England on a trumped-up charge of treason, of which he was promptly
acquitted. Long afterward this Claiborne-Ingle frolic was remembered in
Maryland as the "plundering time."
[Sidenote: Expulsion of Claiborne and Ingle.]
[Sidenote: Appointment of William Stone as governor.]
In 1645 Sir William Berkeley returned to Virginia, and from him the
fugitive Calvert received effective aid and sympathy, so that late
in 1646 he was able to invade his own territory with a force of
Virginians and fugitive Marylanders. Claiborne and Ingle were soon
expelled, and Leonard Calvert's authority was fully reëstablished.
Not long afterward, in June, 1647, this able governor died. For his
brother Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, this was a trying time. He was
a royalist at heart, with little sympathy for Puritans, but like
many other Catholics he thought it wise to keep on good terms with
Parliament, in the hope of securing more toleration than heretofore.
Such a course between Charybdis and Scylla was attended with perils.
In 1648 Cecilius appointed to his governorship William Stone, a
liberal-minded Protestant and supporter of Parliament. Soon after the
king's beheading, the young Charles II., a fugitive in the island of
Jersey, hearing of Stone's appointment, interpreted it as an act of
disloyalty on Baltimore's part, and so in a fit of spite made out a
grant handing over the palatinate of Maryland to Sir William Davenant,
that poet-laureate who was said to resemble Shakespeare until ravening
vanity made him pretend to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son. Sir
William actually set sail for America, but was overhauled in the
Channel by a Parliament cruiser and carried off to the Tower, where
amid sore distress he found a generous protector in John Milton. It was
not very long before Charles II. came to realize his mistake about Lord
Baltimore.
[Sidenote: The Toleration Act of 1649.]
In Maryland the great event of the year 1649, which witnessed the
death of Charles I., was the passage on April 21 of the Act concerning
Religion. This famous statute, commonly known as the "Toleration Act,
was drawn up by Cecilius himself, and passed the assembly exactly as it
came from him, without amendment. With regard to Cecilius, therefore,
it may be held to show, if not the ideas which he actually entertained,
at least those which he deemed it prudent to embody in legislation.
It is not likely to have surpassed his ideals, but it may easily have
fallen somewhat short of them. The statute is so important that the
pertinent sections of it deserve to be quoted at length:[149]--
"That whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands
thereunto belonging, shall from henceforth blaspheme God, that is curse
him, or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or shall
deny the holy Trinity, the ffather sonne and holy Ghost, or the God
head of any of the said three persons of the Trinity, or the unity of
the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull speeches, words or
language concerning the said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three
persons thereof, shall be punished with death, and confiscation or
forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary
and his heires.
"That whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter
any reproachfull words, or speeches, concerning the blessed Virgin
Mary, the mother of our Saviour, or the holy apostles, or Evangelists,
or any of them, shall in such case for the first offence forfeit to
the said Lord Proprietary and his heires the sume of ffive pound
sterling."--
"That whatsoever person shall henceforth upon any occasion, declare,
call, or denominate any person or persons whatsoever inhabiting,
residing, traffiqueing, trading or commerceing within this Province,
or within any of the Ports, Harbors, Creeks or Havens to the same
belonging, an heretick, Scismatick, Idolator, Puritan, Independent,
Prespiterian, popish priest, Iesuit, Iesuited papist, Lutheran,
Calvenist, Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barronist, Roundhead,
Sep'atist, or any other name or term in a reproachfull manner relating
to matter of Religion, shall for every such offence forfeit the sume of
tenne shillings sterling.--
"Whereas the inforcing of the conscience in matters of Religion
hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those
commonwealths where it hath been practised, and for the more quiet
and peaceble government of this Province, and the better to preserve
mutuall Love and amity amongst the Inhabitants thereof; Be it therefore
also by the Lord Proprietary with the advice and consent of this
Assembly, ordered and enacted (except as in this present act is before
declared and sett forth,) that noe person or persons whatsoever
within this Province, or the Islands: Ports, Harbors, Creeks or havens
thereunto belonging, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from
henceforth bee any waies troubled, molested or discountenanced for or
in respect to his or her religion."
A statute which threatens Unitarians with death leaves something to
be desired in the way of toleration, even though it fines a man ten
shillings for calling his neighbour a Calvinist in a reproachful
manner. Nevertheless, for the age when it was enacted this statute was
eminently liberal, and it certainly reflects great credit upon Lord
Baltimore. To be ruler over a country wherein no person professing to
believe in Jesus Christ should be molested in the name of religion was
a worthy ambition, and one from which Baltimore's contemporaries in
Massachusetts and elsewhere might have learned valuable lessons. Such a
policy as was announced in this memorable Toleration Act was not easy
to realize in the seventeenth century. The very year in which it was
enacted saw the grim wolf of intolerance thrusting his paw in at the
door.
[Sidenote: Migration of Puritans from Virginia to Maryland.]
As had happened before, the woes of the Virginia Leah brought woe upon
the Maryland Rachel. When Governor Berkeley returned from England, he
did more than swear at the defiant chaplain Harrison and the other
preachers of Puritanism south of James River. He banished the pastors
and made life unendurable for the flocks. In 1648 two of the Nansemond
elders, Richard Bennett and William Durand, fleeing to Maryland, were
kindly received by Governor Stone, who extended a most hospitable
invitation to their people to leave Virginia and settle in the
Baltimore palatinate. Cecilius had complained that settlers did not
come fast enough and his colony was still too weak, whereupon Stone had
promised to do his best to bring in 500 new people. His opportunity
had now come; early in 1649 an advance body of 300 Puritans came from
Nansemond. The rest of their brethren hesitated, fearing lest Catholics
might be no pleasanter neighbours than the king's men, but the course
of events soon decided them. The news of the execution of Charles I.
was generally greeted in Virginia with indignation and horror, feelings
which were greatly intensified by the arrival of the Cavaliers who in
that year began to flock to Virginia. One ship in September brought 330
Cavaliers, and probably more than 1,000 came in the course of the year.
In October the assembly declared that the beheading of the king was an
act of treason which nobody in Virginia must dare to speak in defence
of under penalty of death. It also spoke of the fugitive Charles II. as
"his Majesty that now is," and made it treason to call his authority
in question. These were the last straws upon the back of the Puritan
camel, and in the course of the next few months the emigration from
Nansemond went on till as many as 1,000 persons had gone over to
Maryland. They settled upon land belonging to the Susquehannocks, near
the mouth of a stream upon which they bestowed the name of the glorious
English river that falls into the sea between Glamorgan and the Mendip
Hills, and the county through which this new-found Severn flowed they
called Providence from feelings like those which had led Roger Williams
to give that comforting name to his settlement on Narragansett Bay.
Presently this new Providence became a county bearing Lady Baltimore's
name, Anne Arundel, and the city which afterwards grew up in it was
called Annapolis. This country had not been cleared for agriculture
by the Indians, like the region about St. Mary's, and there was some
arduous pioneer work for the Puritan colony.
[Sidenote: Designs of the Puritans.]
In changing the settlement or plantation of Providence into the
county of Anne Arundel, something more than a question of naming was
involved. The affair was full of political significance. Puritans
at first entertained an idea that they might be allowed to form an
_imperium in imperio_, maintaining a kind of Greek autonomy on the
banks of their Severn, instead of becoming an integral portion of
Baltimore's palatinate. At first they refused to elect representatives
to the assembly at St. Mary's; when presently they yielded to Governor
Stone's urgency and sent two representatives in 1650, one of them was
straightway chosen speaker of the House; nevertheless, in the next
year the Puritans again held aloof. They believed that the Puritan
government in England would revoke Lord Baltimore's charter, and they
wished to remain separated from his fortunes. Their willingness to
settle within his territory was coupled with the belief that it would
not much longer be his.
[Sidenote: Submission of Virginia to Cromwell.]
This belief was not wholly without reason. The war-ships of the
Commonwealth were about to appear in Chesapeake Bay. Such audacious
proceedings as those of the Virginia Assembly could not be allowed
to go unnoticed by Parliament, and early in 1652 four commissioners
were sent to receive the submission of Berkeley and his colony. One
of these commissioners was Richard Bennett, the Puritan elder who had
been driven from Nansemond. Another was the irrepressible Claiborne,
whom Berkeley had helped drive out of Maryland. The Virginians at
first intended to defy the commissioners and resist the fleet, but
after some parley leading to negotiations, they changed their minds.
It was not prudent to try to stand up against Oliver Cromwell, and
he, for his part, was no fanatic. Virginia must submit, but she might
call it a voluntary submission. She might keep her assembly, by which
alone could she be taxed, all prohibitions upon her trade should be
repealed, and her people might toast the late king in private as much
as they pleased; only no public stand against the Commonwealth would
be tolerated. On these terms Virginia submitted. Sir William Berkeley
resigned the governorship, sold his brick house in Jamestown, and went
out to his noble plantation at Green Spring near by, there to bide his
time. For the next eight years things moved along peaceably under three
successive Roundhead governors, all chosen by the House of Burgesses.
The first was Richard Bennett, who was succeeded in March, 1655, by
Edward Digges; and after a year Digges was followed by that gallant
Samuel Mathews who had once given such a bear's hug to the arrogant
Sir John Harvey. As for Claiborne, he was restored to his old office of
secretary of state.
[Sidenote: Claiborne and Bennett in Maryland.]
In Maryland there was more trouble. As soon as Claiborne had disposed
of the elder sister, Leah, he went to settle accounts with the youthful
Rachel, who had so many wooers. There was Episcopal Virginia, whose
pretensions to the fair damsel were based on its old charter; there
was the Catholic lord proprietor, to whom Charles I. had solemnly
betrothed her; there were the Congregational brethren of Providence on
the Severn, whose new pretensions made light of these earlier vows;
but the master of the situation was Claiborne, with his commission
from Parliament and his heavily armed frigate. Mighty little cared
he, says a contemporary writer, for religion or for punctilios; what
he was after was that sweet and rich country. Claiborne's conduct,
however, did not quite merit such a slur. In this his hour of triumph
he behaved without violence, nor do we find him again laying hands upon
Kent Island. On arriving with Bennett at St. Mary's, they demanded
that Governor Stone and his council should sign a covenant "to be true
and faithful to the Commonwealth of England as it is now established
without King or House of Lords." To this demand no objection was
made, but the further demand, that all writs and warrants should run
no longer in Baltimore's name, but in the name of the Keepers of the
Liberty of England, was obstinately refused. For this refusal Stone was
removed from office, a provisional government was established, and the
commissioners sailed away. This was in April, 1652. After two months of
meditation Stone sent word to Jamestown that he was willing to yield
in the matter of the writs, whereupon Claiborne and Bennett promptly
returned to St. Mary's and restored him to office.
[Sidenote: Renewal of the troubles.]
But those were shifting times. Within a year, in April, 1653, Cromwell
turned out of doors the Rump Parliament, otherwise called Keepers of
the Liberty of England; and accordingly, as writs could no longer run
in their name, Stone announced that he should issue them, as formerly,
in the name of Lord Baltimore. He did this by order of Cecilius
himself. Trouble arose at the same time between Stone and the Puritans
of Providence, and the result of all this was the reappearance of
Bennett and Claiborne at St. Mary's, in July, 1654. Again they deposed
Stone and placed the government in the hands of a council, with William
Fuller as its president. Then they issued writs for the election of
an assembly, and once more departed for Jamestown. According to the
tenor of these writs, no Roman Catholic could either be elected as a
burgess or vote at the election; in this way a house was obtained that
was almost unanimously Puritan, and in October this novel assembly so
far forgot its sense of the ludicrous as to pass a new "Toleration Act"
securing to all persons freedom of conscience, provided such liberty
were not extended to "popery, prelacy, or licentiousness of opinion."
In short, these liberal Puritans were ready to tolerate everybody
except Catholics, Episcopalians, and anybody else who disagreed with
them!
[Sidenote: Battle of the Severn.]
When Lord Baltimore heard how Stone had surrendered the government,
he wrote a letter chiding him for it. The legal authority of the
commissioners, Bennett and Claiborne, had expired with the Rump
Parliament. Cromwell was now Lord Protector, and according to his own
theory the Protectorate was virtually the assignee of the Crown and
successor to all its rights and obligations. Baltimore's charter was
therefore as sound under the Protectorate as it had ever been. Knowing
that Cromwell favoured this view, Cecilius wrote to Stone to resume
the government and withstand the Puritans. This led at once to civil
war. Governor Stone gathered a force of 130 men and marched against the
settlement at Providence, flying Baltimore's beautiful flag of black
and gold. Captain Fuller, with 175 men, was ready for him, and the two
little armies met on the bank of the Severn, March 25, 1655. Besides
his superiority in numbers, Fuller was helped by two armed merchant
ships, the one British, the other from New England, which kept up a
sharp fire from the river. Stone's men were put to flight, leaving one
third of their number in killed and wounded. One old Puritan writer
tells us with keen enjoyment that the field whence they fled was strewn
with their "Papist beads." Among the prisoners taken was Stone himself,
who was badly wounded. Fuller at once held a court-martial at which
Stone and nine other leading men were sentenced to death. Four were
executed, but on the intercession of some kind-hearted women Stone and
the others were pardoned.
[Sidenote: Lord Baltimore sustained by Cromwell.]
The supremacy of the Puritans in Maryland thus seemed to be
established, but it was of short duration. Some of the leading Puritans
in Virginia, such as Bennett and Mathews, visited London and tried to
get Baltimore's charter annulled. But their efforts soon revealed the
fact that Cromwell was not on their side of the question, and so they
gave up in despair, and the quarrel of nearly thirty years' standing
was at last settled by a compromise in 1657. Lord Baltimore promised
complete amnesty for all offences against his government from the
very beginning, and he gave his word never to consent to the repeal
of his Toleration Act of 1649. Upon these terms Virginia withdrew her
opposition to his charter, and indemnified Claiborne by extensive land
grants for the loss of Kent Island. Baltimore appointed Captain Josias
Fendall to be governor of Maryland and sent out his brother Philip
Calvert to be secretary. The men of Providence were fain to accept
toleration at the hands of those to whom they had refused to grant
it, and in March, 1658, Governor Fendall's authority was acknowledged
throughout the palatinate. Peace reigned on the shores of Chesapeake
Bay, the claims of Leah and Rachel were adjusted, and the fair sisters
quarrelled no more.
FOOTNOTES:
[134] See Latané, "Early Relations between Maryland and Virginia,"
_Johns Hopkins University Studies_, vol. xiii.
[135] See above, p. 145.
[136] Hammond, _Leah and Rachel, or, The Two Fruitfull Sisters,
Virginia and Maryland_, 1656.
[137] Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 126.
[138] _Maryland Archives--Council Proceedings_, i. 29.
[139] Hening's _Statutes at Large_, i. 223.
[140] "Memories of Yorktown," address by Lyon Gardiner Tyler, President
of William and Mary College, _Richmond Times_, Nov. 25, 1894. The
original letter of Captain Mathews and the declaration of Sir John
Harvey concerning the "mutiny of 1635" are printed in the _Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography_, i. 416-430. In my brief account I
have tried to reconcile some apparent inconsistencies in the various
statements with regard to time. Some accounts seem to extend over three
or four days the events which more probably occurred on the 27th and
28th. The point is of no importance.
[141] The interval was from April 28, 1635, to January 18, 1637.
[142] Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 143.
[143] In the famous picture of the baptism of Pocahontas, in the
rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, Whitaker, as an Episcopal
clergyman, is depicted as clothed in a surplice. A letter of
Whitaker's, of June, 1614, tells us that no surplices were used in
Virginia; see _Purchas His Pilgrimes_, iv. 1771. Surplices began to be
used there about 1724 (see Hugh Jones, _Present State of Virginia_,
1724, p. 69), and did not come into general use till the nineteenth
century (Latané, _Early Relations_, etc. p. 64).
[144] Randall, "A Puritan Colony in Maryland," _Johns Hopkins
University Studies_, iv.
[145] Hening's _Statutes at Large_, i. 277.
[146] Hildreth (_Hist. of the U. S._ i. 340) says that the Indians
"were encouraged by signs of discord among the English, having seen a
fight in James River between a London ship for the Parliament and a
Bristol ship for the king."
[147] Winthrop's _Journal_, ii. 164.
[148] Browne's _Maryland_, p. 60.
[149] _Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland_,
1637-1664, pp. 244-246.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes.
Words in small capitals are shown in UPPERCASE.
Italics are shown thus: _fine_.
The '^' symbol has been used to show superscript.
Inconsistent hyphenation and variant spelling remain.
Sidenotes have been moved to the begining of the relevent paragraph.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of the chapter.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Assumed printer's errors have been corrected:
--Footnote 133 was not anchored by the printer.
Placement is by the transcribers estimate.
--In the table of contents "The mystery about White's colony 28,39"
has been corrected to "...38,39"."
--"How a part of Virginia was granted to him and received the
name of Maryland 235" corrected to "......265"
* * * * *