“ … the Office of chief and principal Secretary of our said Province of Maryland and of all & singular our dominions and Territories thereunto belonging and of the Custody and keeping of the Seals Records and Registerys of the said Office of chief and principal Secretary and of all other the Acts Ordinances Records and Journals & Registeries of our said Province Dominions and Territories and of the Entrings Recording enrolling Registring exemplifying and keeping of all and singular the Acts Ordinances and Pattents Grants Journalls Records and Registries made or to be made within our said Province dominions and Territories thereunto belonging …”
That is quite a title. William Calvert researchers often substitute 'PSOM.' As in 'Principal Secretary of Maryland.'
Cousin James Neal, Jr. (1917-2017) admonished me, after I once disdained Squire Turner's role as Committee Secretary. "They are authors," he countered. "It's often their work product that you find in the written record." Neal also observed Chairpersons are just as likely to play merely titular roles. I'll admit I have since seen Convening Secretaries in particular as well-informed, and intelligently committed to a cause under consideration.
William Calvert's English-born father Leonard Calvert (c1606-1647) died when our subject was but three or four years old. He too had a record as scribe and keeper of files (tasks I can relate to). Leonard had surrendered the Office of Prothonotary and Keeper of the Writs and Files at County Clare in Ireland's Province of Connaught in 1626. King Charles I hoped successors would act "in as ample manner" as Leonard Calvert had. Think of a Prothonotary as Chief Clerk to a law court.
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The term 'secretary' rose further in my esteem.
Perhaps with honed administrative skills, Leonard accompanied his father in 1628, as Baron Baltimore took hands-on responsibility as Proprietary Governor of the Province of Avalon. Leonard ventured with his parents to nearly inhospitable Newfoundland. Harsh and barely profitable experience would equip Leonard well.
Charles I succeeded his father James in 1625. George promptly removed himself from the King's Privy Council. After leaving the royal court, George publicly reclaimed Roman Catholic practices of his Yorkshire parents. And yet, ongoing loyalty to the Protestant Crown allowed Charles to cede more hospitable soil to Calvert ... American lands north of the Potomac River, on either side of Chesapeake Bay. Crown seals were applied to the patent five weeks following George Calvert's 1632 death in his mid-fifties. Eldest son Cæcilius ‘Cecil’ Calvert (1605/6-1675), Second Baron Baltimore, First Lord Proprietary, Earl Palatine of the Provinces of Maryland and Avalon in America, appears in The Charter of Maryland "treading in the steps of his Father, being animated with a laudable, and pious Zeal for extending the Christian Religion, and also the Territories of our Empire, [he] hath humbly besought Leave of us, that he may transport, by his own Industry and Expense, a numerous Colony of the English Nation, to a certain Region ... in a Country hitherto uncultivated, in the Parts of America, and partly occupied by Savages having no knowledge of the Divine Being ..."
George's sons Cecil and Leonard had been baptized and confirmed as Protestants. Wilson contended Cecil converted to Catholicism near the time of his c1627 marriage to thirteen-year-old Honourable Anne Arundell (1615/16-1649), daughter of Thomas, First Baron Arundell of Wardour ... and a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Krugler suspected Cecil (illegally) added Rome to a 1624 itinerary, and may have preceded his father in open practice. Leonard professed his change of faith in 1625 ... again following his father.
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| Calvert motto "Strong Deeds, Gentle Words" appears on The Great Seal of the State of Maryland |
For conveying vast autocratic power – fairly unique in English history – Charles sought annual tribute of two Indian arrows. He retained rights to his royal fish "and also the fifth Part of all Gold and Silver Ore, which shall happen from Time to Time, to be found within the aforesaid Limits."* "There was to be a hereditary feudal monarchy, surrounded by a body of nobility deriving its rank, dignities, and privileges from the prince as the fountain of honour," observed Browne, placing "Cecilius Absolute Lord of Maryland and Avalon" as the Prince.
"There is no reason to suppose that he intended to found a Catholic colony like the Non-conformist colonies to the north," said Browne of Cecil. A body of study has sprung up around 'Maryland designe,' a term derived from edict their Lord Proprietor gave departing colonists. All worship aboard ship was to be a private matter, and to take place inconspicuously or not at all.‡ "Contrary to a misperception common even in Maryland, neither [George nor Cecil] Calvert ever envisioned his colony as a haven for persecuted Catholics," declared Jackson in 2008. There is no doubt that Cecil defended his faith, and doing so came at social and political cost, but the retired judge opined Cecil and his father acted from belief that, "if Maryland was to be a religious haven for anyone, it should be so for all pious Englishmen of any denomination who wanted to be left alone by pious people of other persuasions, and above all by the government."
With the Irish Rebellion of 1641 impeding Charles I's authority, and perhaps Calvert family revenue, Leonard returned to England to confer with Cecil.§ He returned again at outbreak of the First English Civil War. Charles I, denied London by Parliamentarians, not only granted Leonard an audience, on 26 January 1643/4 the King commissioned Leonard to advance upon Virginia and, according to the Maryland Historical Society, "seize all ships, goods and debts, belonging [to] any person from any place in actual rebellion against the King." Half the booty obtained would belong to the King.
Leonard also took an Anne Brent (1622-1646) as his wife.ǂ Our subject William was by this account born at East Sussex, England on 4 Jul 1643. Perhaps among his mother's people. As is contended of William's sister Anne Calvert (1645-1714), the children were more likely born near the Calvert's Yorkshire seat. It seems that Leonard returned to contentious Maryland without his family.
England's Parliament passed an Act authorizing the Lord High Admiral to issue letters of marque. Puritan Ship Master Richard Ingle (1609–1653) appeared in Maryland on 14 February 1645 ... with a grudge and intent to arrest Leonard Calvert ... who fled to Virginia and whose Maryland property was no doubt plundered when Ingle's men occupied and then fortified the Governor's House at Saint Mary's City.
William's mother is to have died in 1646. Leonard was hard-pressed: he solicited a mercenary force, and in December cleared most of beleaguered Maryland of overt Anglo opposition. A summer illness cost Leonard his life the following year. Papenfuse estimated his estate included nine thousand acres, if not patents and certificates for such. Connor claimed "Calvert’s funeral was, by all reckoning, very elaborate, benefiting his office and social pedigree both in England and Maryland." Riordan contended his Administratrix "tried to ensure a traditional Catholic funeral for the governor" but offered, curiously, “there is no evidence of a Catholic priest in Maryland to oversee the burial. All of the Jesuits and secular priests had been scattered or had died during the rebellion." Leonard was about thirty-seven years old; wife Anne had been but twenty-four. William was just a toddler, around the age of four.
With but a sole, surviving male heir, Cecil – governing from Kiplin Hall at Yorkshire and a London business office – attended closely to William, the only son of his only brother. Cecil flexed a Guardian's legal responsibility. In advertising his nephew's lineage, while securing planting fields at the Provincial capitol, it seems apparent that the Lord Proprietor was positioning my 9th great-grandfather to ably represent family interests in this colonial venture.
"The Calverts won the case," Newman asserted. William Calvert won something else in short order. The heart (and lands) of Elizabeth 'Eliza' Stone (1643-1707).
Papenfuse had William Calvert arriving at Maryland in 1661. Proceedings of the Provincial Court, 1666-1670 documented "William Calvert of St Maries" on 3 October making indenture to convey an improved "Tenement or plantacon" of "one hundred and ninty Acres more or lesse" at Saint Gabriel's Manor. Rent, of "two henns or Capons yearely," was not to be delivered to Saint Mary's residence ... but "at the mansion house of the said William Calvert in Calverts rest."
Discovery surprised me, that our subject, upon attaining his majority, promptly wed William Stone's eldest surviving daughter Eliza. Courtship would have been brief. (Perhaps union had been prearranged.) Charles, first child born to William and Eliza, is here given a 3 October 1662 date of birth. Enmity over 1660 reclamation of Stone's property at the capitol was not broad, nor long in duration. Eliza's brother Thomas Stone (1635-1676) by 9 September 1663 appointed William Calvert his attorney. In the Archives, Thomas described his sister's husband as "brother." It may have been wise practice, to advertise family relationship to reigning aristocracy. Catholic William's marriage allied him with a Protestant family having a history of robust colonial leadership.
William Calvert exercised another boon provided by his Lord Proprietor. In 1662, and perhaps arriving with it, our subject held license to trade with tribal peoples. A Calvert detractor would in 1667 petition Charles II for redress: among the Puritan's grievances was a trading-post working a market he coveted. "They had no grant of land," declared Virginia-based William Claiborne (1600–1679) of Maryland competitors, "but merely a license to trade; nor did the settlers raise their supplies, but depended for these upon traffic with the Indians ..." O'Gorman acknowledged William's license provided "a profitable source of revenue." In turbulent times at remote location in the realm, capacity to flex trading sinews no doubt advantaged William. Secure relationships with sea captains and well-resourced trading houses at London gave the young man some muscle. Good will among Native traders might have given him a sense of security ... derived from in-the-field intelligence.
On 4 November 1663 Winganetta, "King" of Nangemy Peoples (also seen as Nanjemaick), acknowledged in open court he had received "full satisfaction" for land that had been in William Stone's estate. It is elsewhere described as a five-thousand-acre parcel. 1660 probate had conveyed twenty-one hundred Nangemy acres to Stone's heirs, six hundred of them to Eliza. The bride also brought to her marriage nine hundred acres at Bustard's Island on the Patuxent River.
Cecil appointed William to be his Attorney-General in 1666. He would hold that office for three years.
My 8th great-grandfather, George Calvert, was born in 1668. Purportedly to William and Elizabeth (Stone) Calvert.†† William that year began a three-year stint as Alderman of Saint Mary's City: despite Leakin's reverie, Calvert's Rest may not have been the family home. 1664 contract between a London merchant and Saint Mary's planter occurred "at the now dwelling house of William Calvert, Esq." I suspect it would have been challenging to practice law lucratively ... while ensconced at a remote plantation.
William tread in his grandfather George's grand footsteps. By "special writ" Cecil brought him into the General Assembly's Upper House in 1669, in which the Governor and his Council were then sole office-holders. William held this office for the rest of his life. According to the Archives, on 27 May 1669, Cecil – as Lord Proprietor – appointed “one of my deputies” William Calvert as a “Judge in Testamentary business.” Cecil on 28 July 1669 authorized son Charles Calvert (1637-1715), then a Deputy Lieutenant Governor, "to admit his Lordships dear Nephew William Calvert Esqr. … to be of his Lordships Council and Justice of his Provincial Court.” Our subject received express preference: it was “his Lordships further Pleasure … that his said dear Nephew William Calvert do take his place in the Provincial Court and Council next to the Chancellor.” Philip Calvert (1626-1682) held the post. And rank. Philip was younger half-brother to Cecil and Leonard.
[A family tree chart at conclusion below graphically represents pertinent sons and grandsons to the First Baron Baltimore.]
William Calvert, then in his mid-twenties, gave his oath and took his seat 22 October. A Wikipedia contributor observed “From 1669 to 1689, of 27 men who sat on the Governor's Council, just 8 were Protestant. Most councillors were Catholics, and many were related by blood or marriage to the Calverts, enjoying political patronage and often lucrative offices ...”
Archives are vague. It was in perhaps January 1670 when Virginia Gentleman James Clifton (c1640-c1714/5) appeared before “William Calvert, Esqr., one of his Lordships Privy Council.” Clifton allegedly “did Maliciously and Traiterously Utter publish and declare divers Traiterous words of Concerning and Against the Majesty and Person of our Royal Sovereign King Charles the second King of England … to wit that the King was a Son of a Whore and owed him one thousand pounds and never paid him nor never would.” A witness testified Clifton may have been speaking of an Indian King. Clifton was released.
On 20 July 1670, Monatquund, Speaker for Piscattoway Peoples, along with Tribal Councilors Unnacawsey and Mappassanough, appeared before William Calvert, Esq., and another “Deputy Lieutenant of this Province of Maryland.” Native representatives may have been summonsed. Monatquund is to have testified he and Councilors came “to revive the League between the said Pascattoway Indians and the English.” He appealed “first in the name of the Boys, next in the name of the elder Persons; that they might eat drink Sleep and play in quiet; the women in like manner, desire the peace.” Translation avowed “The old men desire it that they may sleep by their wives quietly and take their Tobacco.” Colonial administrators sought reaffirmation of Maryland’s “Lord Proprietary for their Lord and Protector.”
The parley was anchored in transaction. It had been some time since Piscattoway Peoples could afford to offer gifts: “They came to keep in memory the peace ... now they are reduced to a small Number and therefore they cannot present any thing Considerable." William himself may have produced written record which observed, "Lastly from the miserable Poor they desire that hereafter when their Nation may be reduced to nothing perhaps they may not be Scorned and Chased out of our Protection.”
'Nation' is a key phrase: I will set William's later conduct within that worldview.
Deputy Lieutenants responded “that as they desired to Continue in Amity with us so did we Assure them that we should not break the Articles made & Confirm’d by Act of Assembly between the Lord Proprietary and them.” The Deputies made demand of their counterparts. “We do hope they will be mindful and wary to preserve every of the said Articles and that so long [as amity continues] we should not scorn or Cast of the meanest of them.” Quid pro quo, they sought an Indian who had stroke a colonist be delivered to them ... contending Benjamin Price had died of the blow. “To which they replied that Price died not of the Blow but was in health twenty days after and that the said Price was swimming and diving in the presence of Mr. Chandlers Children at Port Tobacco and came out of the water sick of an Ague and vomited and of the said sickness died.” Complexity – and detail – of language recorded in counter-contention indicates to me that a certain fidelity with proceedings emerged in the written record.
Deputy Lieutenants desired the Pascattoway Emperor appear at October convening of the Privy Council. “To which the Speaker answered the Emperor was at the Sasquehanoughs [Sussquehannock Nation] and that it was not in his Power to promise that he should come.” He suggested, “for Clearing the Business,” that Price’s “head might be Searched.” The Lieutenants agreed, and ordered two surgeons “do view the head” the following month, and that Monatquund be present when officials “Certify what their opinions are, touching the death of the said Price.” It was further ordered “that there be given to the said Monatquund Unnacasey & Wappassanough three Match Coats and two Gallons of Rum.”
Charles Calvert was Maryland’s Lieutenant Governor by 22 July 1670 when, following safe arrival in England, he bestowed right to act in his capacity to three men, including “his dear Cozen William Calvert Esqr.” William was in a small circle, possessed of substantial power. Upon concurrence of any two of them, they were authorized “to Muster and train all sorts of men … in Case of Insurrections or approaching of any Enemy or Enemies, Pyrate or other Robbers, to make War against them & to pursue Enemy or Enemies … as well by Sea as Land and to Vanquish and take them and being so taken to put them to Death by the Law of War or to save them at their pleasure and to do all and every thing … likewise in Case of any Rebellion Tumult or sedition … to exercise martial Law against all Rebellous mutinous and seditious persons of those parts.” Our subject, as one of a trio of Deputy Lieutenant Governors, oversaw levy and collection of taxes as 1670 harvest came in.
“When he became the principal secretary on March 16, 1673/4, William Calvert took an oath to keep all articles of “One certaine act of Assembly,”” Krugler discovered. Calvert no doubt publicly vowed he would hew to Cecil's 1649 Act Concerning Religion. Legislation mandating religious tolerance that William had enforced as the Province's Attorney General, 1666-1669. On 1 August 1764 he signed himself “William Calvert Esqr Principal Secretary of this Province.”
Archives depicted administrative responsibilities. Talbot identified William's offices as “Secretary or Publick Notary of the Province” and “chief Judge for Probate of wills.” As did the prior office holder, Calvert likely conveyed potentially very lucrative right to establish Plantations. The Principal Secretary acted in complete subservience to the Lord Proprietor, however: “You shall apply your self wholly to his Excellency and strictly follow such Orders Rules or directions as he shall Give you in any Business whatsoever.” Calvert kept a "Booke of Secrys ffees." A sixth and final directive distinguished a secretarial role: “You shall once in every month wait upon his said Excellency and give him an account of all Business that shall be transacted by you and also pursue his Excellencys Commands, as well in doing the Business of the Office, as in giving him an Account of the fees or what else his said Excellency shall please to intimate to you.”
Upon the 1675 death of his father Cecil, Charles Calvert returned to London. Where he was elevated as Third Baron Baltimore. Charles inherited the Province of Maryland. While there, a fifteen-page “Complaint from Heaven with a Huy and crye and a petition out Virginia and Maryland” was presented to Charles II and his Parliament in May 1676. Our subject was identified in a hotly damning document: “Wee must annatomize owr present provintiall Court and Assembly … that England may see who are owr Governors and chief rulers, and thereby measur the exactnes of the legalls; viz … William Calvert, nephew ...” Our subject is but one of Cecil Calvert’s “generall kindsman” singled out, “besides the secret Councell of priests and Natlyes with perhaps a son in law or kindered more stronge papists besids … with som protestants for fashion sake.”Archives depicted administrative responsibilities. Talbot identified William's offices as “Secretary or Publick Notary of the Province” and “chief Judge for Probate of wills.” As did the prior office holder, Calvert likely conveyed potentially very lucrative right to establish Plantations. The Principal Secretary acted in complete subservience to the Lord Proprietor, however: “You shall apply your self wholly to his Excellency and strictly follow such Orders Rules or directions as he shall Give you in any Business whatsoever.” Calvert kept a "Booke of Secrys ffees." A sixth and final directive distinguished a secretarial role: “You shall once in every month wait upon his said Excellency and give him an account of all Business that shall be transacted by you and also pursue his Excellencys Commands, as well in doing the Business of the Office, as in giving him an Account of the fees or what else his said Excellency shall please to intimate to you.”
Much has been made of anti-Catholic sentiment in this era, but the list of grievances is long. An early complaint over funding frontier defense will reappear as a refrain in run-up to Revolutionary War a hundred years later: Cecil, instead of following royal command to form a defensive league with New York, “raysed the People in Armes for his privat gaine and Interest onely to oppress the king's subjects with great taxes in his and own creatures pokket as principally may appear out of the leavy laest year … and perswaded afterward the Assembly men, not to call him to an account for it, but to give it him. So did hee likewise in the [1669] Indian Wiccomisso Warr, when they tooke all the plunder from the poor souldiers and sent the Indian prisoners to Barbados for Negros, but forced the poore inhabitants to bear and pay all the charges.”‡‡
We will revisit the Wicocomico.
Charles II’s Privy Council directed Charles Calvert to respond to Anglican complaints made against him. "Calvert's council hanged two of the would-be rebels," asserted Brugger. In written reply, Calvert contraried Charles II: he re-asserted Maryland's religious tolerance, confiding Maryland settlers were "Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, and Quakers, those of the Church of England as well as the Romish being the fewest ... it would be a most difficult task to draw such persons to consent unto a Law which shall compel them to maintaine ministers of a contrary perswasion to themselves." Virginians Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and my 4th great-grandfather Andrew Tribble would draw the same conclusion, when advancing A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1779.
Our subject, “the Secry of the sd province by name Will: Calvert Esqre putt his hand to a pass or writteing under the lesser seale the sd province.” At May 1681 convening of Maryland’s Provincial Court, William gave Christopher Rousby, “his Majestyes Collector” of revenues, "license" to depart the Province. Rousby was perhaps being shoved out: the Lord Proprietor, retaining authority over internal taxation, had it in for the King's man Rousby.§§ Complaint of “Insolent and unwarrantable proceedings of Christopher Rousby the collector … tending greatly to the discouragement of the Trade, diminution of his [Majesty’s] Customes, and disturbance of the peace and Quiett” had been sent to the Crown. Endorsers indicated their religious affiliation: “William Calvert Esq. Secretary R[oman] Cath[olic]” was one of three confessing to the faith: the other five were Protestant. Later in May proceedings, our subject was further described as “William Calvert a R. Cath.” and as a Colonel in command of foot forces at St. Mary’s County ... in which Maryland’s vital seat of government was situated. Six of the ten Maryland counties were commanded by Protestant Colonels.
"There were Seaven people killed at Point Looke out," as tribal warriors harassed the Province generally in September 1681. The Privy Council met and proposed "a Letter be writt to Sr Henry Chickley his Majties Governor of Virginia" soliciting coordinated response. Authorship can be inferred. On 13 September a General Assembly gathered. Our subject appeared in two, distinct initiatives. It was "Ordered that The honble William Calvert Esqr Principall Secry of this Province be the person Especially appointed by his Ldspp to goe ... to the Governor of Virginia." Our subject was styled Colonel William Calvert of Saint Mary's County when inhabitants under the charge of several militias were commissioned to "stand upon their guard and posture of Defence" on 15 September.
William Calvert was in his Provincial Court seat for the 15 November 1681 trial of Josias Fendall, Gentleman (c1630-1692). Fendall had served Cecil as Maryland’s Governor, from 1656 until Cromwell’s Puritan government fell in London four years later. "Traytor" Fendall was indicted for mutiny and sedition. Additional accusations were more personal: Fendall was charged with plotting to employ “force and armes to attempt the securing” and imprison the Lord Proprietor and two cousins ... including our “William Calvert Esqre principal secretary of this Province.”
According to Wikipedia contributors who did not provide sources, “Rumors circulated in 1681” that Fendall and Maryland Assemblyman John Coode planned moving their families temporarily to Virginia. Upon hearing this, Lord Baltimore had them arrested, fearing the men were fomenting rebellion. “It is very doubtful that a rebellion was actually under way." The contention was supported by out-of-state actors: "Virginia observers felt that Lord Baltimore's charges against the two men were unsupported and “of little weight.” Some suggested the arrests were merely an attempt to prevent participation by either Coode or Fendall in the upcoming session of the Assembly, which already promised to be a heated confrontation over defense policies.” And funding said policies, I suspect.
The pair's trial was supposedly flawed in several respects. “For fear that Fendall would have time to influence the people who charged him, he was not allowed by the courts to enquire into the evidence of his crime." He was allowed to screen jurors, dismissing Catholics and retaining Protestants. Coode was acquitted, and advised to "keepe a Guard upon your Tongue." Following substantial witness testimony, jurors found Fendall guilty of attempting to raise a mutiny, and sedition through utterance of "malicious words against the government." Fendall was fined forty thousand pounds of tobacco, followed by banishment from the province. “The sentence is as favourable as could be expected,” our subject declared at sentencing. “The Law of our Province would have allowed boaring of the Tongue, cropping one or both Ears, and other corporall punishments; but wee have forbourne that, and taken this moderate and less shamefull way of [punishment].”
Our subject is seen, in standard English, as 'William Calvert, Esquire, Colonel' on a 28 April 1682 solicitation by Maryland's Upper House appearing in Maryland Archives, Vol. 7. "The Honourable the Secretary" was dispatched to the Lower House ... seeking bicameral conference; a "Consult of the Northern Indian Affairs;" and response to a letter received from New York's Acting Governor Anthony Brockholls. Success in implementing the Lord Proprietor's program would require utmost diplomatic skills. Counterparts included New Yorkers over whom they had no direct, political influence; as well as sovereigns among non-English-speaking and much more culturally distinct Susquehannah, Pisscattaway and Nanticoke Peoples, let alone further removed and lesser-known 'northern' Omeydes (Oneidas) and Onondagoes. William Calvert embarked on international affairs among what are plainly described as "Indian Nations." He appears to me as emulating his grandfather's service to James I ... as Secretary of State.
While the Assembly addressed a half-dozen issues, including acts encouraging "making Linen and Woollen Cloth" and "Sowing and making Hemp and flax," the Committee of both houses met daily. Until, on 4 May, they offered "their Advice and Report." Their clerk noted "the Pisscattaways became Enimies to the Susquehannahs meerly upon the Score of Articles made with the Honourable Leonard Calvert Esqr at first, and after by Assisting us against them in the year 1676," and "if we Abandon the Pisscattaways they must incorporate with the Northern Indians, and in that Case become another Enraged Enemy." The Committee proposed some Assembly members "be sent to New York to treate with all the Northern Nations of Indians, and to make peace for Our Selves and all Our Neighbour Indians," and that "the Pisscattaway Indians be protected in the meantime with Arms Ammunition and Men (if need require)." They also suggested "Eastern Shore Indians be Supplyed with Ammunition if they desire it." In the interim, Military Officers should conduct "frequent Musters and Appearances in Arms of Our English," and "Commission for a Defensive Warr."
On 9 May 1682 "The honble William Calvert Esqr Secy" was one of five seated in Council as warrant was issued. “Whereas his [Lordship] and Councill have been informed that Two Indians … under Subjection of the King of Wicocomico, [are] guilty of hogstealeing." Prior demand – that the pair be delivered up to English justice – had been unmet. Another militia Colonel was ordered “to take with you twenty men in Armes well mounted on horse back and … Demand peremptorily the Delivery of the sd Indians to be proceeded against according to Law.”
William Calvert's rank in Saint Mary's County Militia appeared in a 13 May remonstrance by twenty-five prominent Church of England Members. As did his religious custom. Calvert was identified as one of "onely three of the Romish perswasion" serving as "Colonells or principall officers of the militia ... in like manner all other officers and places of honor or profitt within this Province, Civill or Military, [are] impartially and equally if not for the most part on Protestants conferred. This not only in vindication of his Lordshipp's honor, and this his government, but also for the Publick Interest ..." Declaration published "to the world" cited "the general freedom & priviledge which we and all persons whatsoever Inhabitants of this Province, of what condicion soever, doe enjoy in our lives, liberties and estates under this His Lordship's Government." The testimonial was certainly a tool the Lord Proprietor could use to quell discontent in Charles II's Privy Council. I find it affirming that a cadre of Protestants "observed his Lordshipp's favours impartially distributed, and Places of Honor, trust and profit conferred on the most qualified for that purpose & service without any respect or regard had to the religion of the participants ..."
Our subject last appeared in Council Proceedings on 9 May 1682. "In Complyance with the vote of both houses of Assembly for makeing peace with the Northern Indians for ourselves Virginia and our neighbouring and ffriend Indians," Charles Calvert sought "Emperors of Nantecoke and Assateague, and the severall Kings under them" know "his Ldspp intends very speedily to send Agents to New Yorke to make peace with the Northern Indians for our selves and all our ffriend Indians." Idea had arisen in the Lower House that indigenous leaders "(if they see good) send with ours some Agents of theirs who may be Spectators of our honest endeavours for them, and (if need be) Ratifye and confirme the peace (if any to be procured)."
The Calvert Genealogy Group contended our subject "drowned when his boat capsized while crossing the swollen Wicomico River." A sloop did appear in inventory of William Calvert's estate, along with a dozen slaves, eight Whites remaining in servitude, fourteen hundred acres, eight thousand pounds of tobacco, an impressive twenty-eight books ... and nearly a thousand pounds sterling. Papenfuse, who provided this inventory, wrote Calvert "drowned while trying to ford the swollen Wicomico River" ... and gave 26 May 1682 as date of Calvert's death.
'Wicomico' is constant in more intimate accounts of Calvert's death. Though some contend the waterway on which he died was in Charles County, no account further details the event ... or provides witness testimony. I will quickly observe Maryland's Council had only weeks before "peremptorily" demanded two Wicocomico nationals be brought by force of arms.
Final reference to William Calvert was recorded postmortem, 12 October 1682. Thomas Perry deposition exposed Fendall (at whose trial and order of banishment Calvert sat in judgement the previous November) plotting to "secure my Lord the Chancelor, the Secry, and Coll Darnall." Following his intended kidnapping of our subject, Fendall had asserted, "the rest would fall" ... meaning the Calvert government.
Lythgoe found "Josias Fendall, Gent." and wife Mary ... then living in not-too-distant Westmoreland County, Virginia ... in Charles County, Maryland records for 28 April 1683. The Fendalls conveyed fourteen thousand "acres on Wicomico River" to William Digges, a Charles Calvert son-in-law. Who, with our subject, had sat in judgment over Fendall. The Colonial Encounters project included history when describing a Josias Fendall archaeological site: "Fendall had settled at a plantation between Hatton and Charleston creeks on the west side of the Wicomico River." (They also cited Palmer when contending widow Mary Fendall sued Digges in 1688 ... for eighty thousand pounds of tobacco.) The rebellious Fendall had many adherents along the swollen Wicomico at the time of our subject's demise; it's not precisely clear how soon following 1682 banishment he left the area.
William Calvert, former Chief Judge for Probate of Wills, died intestate. 13 July 1682 inventory of his estate depicted (debts of £662.18 and) Elisabeth Calvert as Administratrix/Executrix. Accounting seemed to follow rhythm of the seasons. Archives noted the Provincial Council on 2 March 1685 found ten thousand pounds of tobacco were due Calvert, "prooved by the said Calverts Booke of Secrys ffees." More than forty creditors were declared satisfied on 30 April 1686.
Calvert had likely been less than forty years old at his death. Besides widow Eliza, he left – by my account – four sons and a daughter. None of the children had reached their majority.
NOTES:
Particularly when events fell in close order, Double Dating between Julian and Gregorian calendars vexed research. My practice was to present dates as they appeared in a record.
* In Shoemaker v. United States (1893) the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed gold deposits in private land Congress condemned for Rock Creek Park at the District of Columbia became United States property. Evidence presented in District Court tended to show certain lands; which the court held to be subject to a reservation of "royal mines" in a patent granted by Maryland's Lord Proprietary in 1772; were conveyed by Charles I grant of patent to Cecil in 1632. "The royalty of one fifth part of the gold and silver reserved to the King" became, "by the Revolution," vested in the state of Maryland. "Consequently the United States succeeded to the state's title by the act of cession of 1791."
Dowdy warned, in her excellent thesis (2019) 'Robinson Crusoe as Promotion Literature: the Reality of English Settlement in the Chesapeake, 1624-1680,' "It is unclear how much of what was reported to have taken place actually happened. This is a published English interpretation, probably made in order to reassure investors that local tribes in Maryland were peaceful." By 1637 Leonard referenced his dwelling place as a "ffort." Feasibility study for Friends of the John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail (2009), with tribal assistance detailed inter-tribal complexity at the time of contact.
‡ Krugler's The Calvert Vision: A New Model for Church-State Relations offered deep insight on religious tolerance, baked into Cecil Calvert's “Maryland designe." My post Another Tongue o' Clishmaclaver attends to church-state constructs in this period at The Colony of Virginia.
§ Cecil and Leonard's Irish religiopolitical ties – if not actual landholdings – were in jeopardy. Their father, then Knight of Danbywiske, Yorkshire; and Clerk of the King's Privy Council; had been youngest among a quartet of ministers James I dispatched to Ireland in 1613 ... to examine Catholic grievances. It confused biographers that George then helped draft recommendation for compulsory Church of England attendance, and suppression of "Popish" schools and priests. On 18 February 1621 James granted royal favor for political deftness: Baltimore Manor on twenty-three thousand acres in County Longford, Ireland were conveyed to George Calvert, Knight.
"These lands were held under the condition that all settlers upon them should take the oath of supremacy and "be conformable [to the Church of England] in point of religion." Calvert four years later professed Roman Catholic faith: "He surrendered his patent and received it back with the religious clause omitted," William Hand Browne conveyed, in George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert: Barons Baltimore of Baltimore (1890). A few weeks before his 1625 death, James I "created the aforesaid George Calvert, Knight, unto the estate, degree, dignity, and honour of Baron Baltimore of Baltimore, within Our Kingdom of Ireland."
'Baltimore' is thought by some to be Anglicization of Irish 'Baile an Tí Mhóir,' meaning "town of the big house." Alternate theory connects the placename to Celtic 'Baal Tine Mor,' "the great fire of Baal."
ǂ In A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature 1635-1789 (1979) editor Edward C. Papenfuse acknowledged William Calvert as born to Leonard and Anne, c1642/3. He then cryptically asserted Leonard "returned to England in 1641/42 and 1643/44, during which time he fathered his two children, who were probably illegitimate." Family history researchers tended to posit that Catholic marriages of the period in England were likely secret and unrecorded. Illegitimacy might have prompted Cecil's 1661 testimonial, declaring William's paternity.
¶ Note the testimony of "Margaret Brent" in the image depicting 1661 restoration of Leonard Calvert's property. Some contend she was elder sister to Leonard's wife Anne: the pair were quite likely cousins of some sort. Margaret Brent (c1601-c1671) never married. Notably styled 'Gentlewoman,' she was allowed to own property in her own right. Loker contends Brent "worked as an attorney, even a prosecutor under Lord Calvert, and is recognized by the American Bar Association as the first female attorney in the United States."
"6 howres before his death" on 19 June 1647, Leonard verbally instructed Brent – as his Executrix – to "take and pay all" from his estate. He had hired mercenaries to take Maryland back from rebellious Puritans. Uncompensated, the men loitered menacingly at Saint Mary's City. Planters had fled two-year rebellion; meager harvest forecast food shortages. Lacking clear authority to act on the Governor's wishes, Brent appeared before the Provincial Court for unique authorization to dispose of Leonard's cattle, thus enabling her to feed and pay disgruntled 'militia.' Without waiting for transatlantic instruction. (Interestingly, House of Names links surname 'Calvert' to Calvehird: "It is a name for a person who tended cattle.")
Bozman imagined Brent "to have possessed a masculine understanding." After presenting a novel case, the court adjudged Brent, as Administratrix of the Provincial Governor's estate, held power of attorney in his affairs. Seemingly in the absence of an Attorney General, the court ruled Brent within her authority to also act as the Lord Proprietor's personal attorney-in-fact, "as governor Calvert had been." She immediately granted herself permission to act.
Brent expended much of our subject's inheritance. She placated the mercenaries and protected Calvert holdings, nudging a complex and tenuous balance of power at a critical juncture. Brent almost immediately lost favor with a suspicious and far-removed Lord Proprietary. "We do Verily Believe and in Conscience report," the Maryland Assembly retorted to Baron Baltimore; after his brother's death, "it was better for the Collonys safety at that time in her hands then in any mans else in the whole Province ... for the Soldiers would never have treated any other with that Civility and respect." According to Archives of Maryland, Vol. 1, "She rather deserved favour and thanks from your Honour for her so much Concurring to the publick safety then to be justly liable to ... bitter invectives you have been pleased to Express against her."
On 21 January 1648 and still wrangling with state finance, Brent petitioned Maryland's Acting Governor and Provincial Assembly to admit her with two votes, one as a free landowner in her own right, and another as Lord Baltimore's acting personal attorney. Refused, she departed with disruptive protest. Sturgill contended Brent thus "became the first woman in the New World to request the right to vote."
Having moved across Chesapeake Bay to found a community called 'Peace' on Virginia's Northern Neck, Brent left a thousand Maryland acres to her nephew James Clifton in 1671. He whose allegedly "Traiterous words" had brought him before William Calvert the year prior.
Until 1670, "Maryland allowed all freemen" (any man who was not indentured), "regardless of color or religion, to participate and vote in the colonial assembly." According to Historic Saint Mary’s City, coastal trader Mathias de Sousa is offered as "the first man of African descent to participate in an Assembly in English America." He was elected in 1642 to the Lower House of Maryland's General Assembly.
** "From the very beginning, titles or distinction in social status in Maryland were religiously employed," found Newman in 1961 study of the Province's social structure during formative years. "At the time Lord Baltimore was formulating plans" for a Province beyond the seas – a project some agrarian-minded English called "western planting" – "the feudal age was still lingering and had not altogether given way to the materialism of commerce which was then dawning in 17th century England. Many of the conservative younger sons at that period, who still regarded the cultivation of the soil as the rightful pursuit of a gentleman, looked upon the Colonies as a medium for the life befitting their birthrights."
The Lord Proprietor assured William Calvert would arrive as 'Esquire' ... “ceremonious title for the squirarchy.” Perhaps holding less land, 'Gentry' were accorded lower rank. 'Gentleman' was highest title accorded freemen of lower-status Yeomanry. All perceived themselves as proprietors over their plantations, above servant and artisan classes. In grave departure from English custom, African slaves would supplant bond servants in Cecil's tenure. Our subject certainly qualified in this assessment: "Many of the squirarchy were descended from the younger sons of the peers or had peerage connections." They were often referred to as "the untitled aristocracy."
Newman also observed religious influence on societal standing: "The magnanimity of the Calverts was their undoing. By the complete tolerance to all Christian doctrine, they invited the Puritan, the Quaker, and the non-Conformist ..." In most instances, "Dissenters of the first generation could not and would not conform to the pattern of the Maryland squirarchy and county gentry."
†† On ancestry of my 9x great-grandfather. Papenfuse (1979) unequivocally depicts "George (1668-aft. 1739), who married Elizabeth Doyne" as third son born to William and Elizabeth (Stone) Calvert. Ella Foy O'Gorman, compiling Descendants of Virginia Calverts (1947), was particularly rigorous, expertly sourcing her work. In delightful, self-questioning banter at the Foreward, she concluded "With so many Stafford County [Virginia] records missing, it seems futile ever to hope to make conclusive proof of the parentage ... of George Calvert of Stafford County. In deference to this seemingly universal tradition of their descent from Lord Baltimore by these Calverts of Prince William and Culpeper counties, the compiler is letting it stand that George Calvert of Stafford County was a son of the Hon. William Calvert of St. Mary's and Charles counties, Maryland."
"Half of Stafford’s historical records were taken as souvenirs or destroyed when Stafford’s Courthouse was looted and later partially burned" contended Virginia's Stafford County Historical Society. In 1862, Brigadier General Daniel Sickles’ Excelsior Brigade conducted two, devastating raids on the courthouse and clerk’s office.
The Calvert Surname Y-DNA Study, acknowledged George (b 1668) "is accepted, but unproven with primary source documents, to be the son of William Calvert, Esq." They went so far as to attempt derive proof from a Philip Calvert, descendant of my 7th great-grandfather John Calvert (c1692-1739). "Philip Calvert's remains were used to attempt to extract DNA. However the attempt was not successful."
"Hopefully, someone – maybe you – will discover the missing link proving this family’s heritage," the Calvert Genealogy Group testified, in 'Who was the First George Calvert of Stafford County, Virginia?' Thirteen-page, scholarly treatment in The Prince William Reliquary, Vol. 9, No.2 was highly collaborative. And innovative ... proposing a land-mapping project. It would most certainly have tickled my hundred-year-old cousin James Neale, Jr. (cited at the outset) to learn that William and Eliza (Stone) Calvert's proven daughter Elizabeth (b c1666) married a James Neale, Jr. (1660-1727).
‡‡ Marye, in ‘The Wiccomiss Indians of Maryland’ for American Antiquity (1938), placed the tribe north of Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “The Wiccomiss Indians (Wicomese, Wicomick, Wickamiss, Wiccomisso, etc.) were persecuted and dispersed by the Government of Maryland,” he noted early in his account. He cited a 1635 source, depicting the tribe as enemies of the Sussquehannock. By 1648 the Wiccomiss had become “forced auxiliaries” of the tribe. Sussquehannock overlords in 1652 ceded “the whole of the Eastern Shore as far south as Choptank River” to the Government of Maryland. Marye wrote “When Maryland was prosecuting its final war against the Wiccomiss it was reported [in Maryland Archives, Vol. 2] that these Indians “have drawne [the Delaware Nation] into League with them.”
§§ Even a royal official required permission to leave the Province. As with Cecil visiting Rome in 1624 without his King's consent, contemplation of Article 13 of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights might prove rewarding. Persons have the right to travel.
The Murder of Christopher Rousby: Part II offered interesting account. A George Talbot, “first cousin of Lord Baltimore [whom] Baltimore had appointed as Surveyor General of Maryland in 1683,” stabbed the revenue collector to death on All Hallows Eve; 31 October 1684.
