Papist Devils
Catholics in North American
British Colonies
3. Maryland and the Repercussions
of the English Civil War
© 2016 George E. Blanford Jr.
English Civil War, 1642-1651
 Beginning in the summer of 1642 war raged
between Royalists and Parliamentarians
 The Puritan dominated Parliament seized ⅔
property of Catholics regardless of their
loyalty
 King Charles eased up on penal laws 
Catholics gravitated toward him
 Cecil Calvert finally committed himself to the
Royalist cause in 1644
 King Charles gave Baltimore a privateering
license to seize ships from London, the
parliamentary headquarters, to Virginia
 This would be a great monetary advantage
for Baltimore
The victory of the Parliamentarian New
Model Army over the Royalist Army at the
Battle of Naseby on 14 June 1645 which
marked the decisive turning point in the
English Civil War.
Maryland vs Virginia
 Virginia had opposed the colony of Maryland from the
beginning
 In 1635, William Claiborne, who had grown rich in
Virginia, led the opposition and tried to occupy Kent Island
to keep it from the control of Lord Baltimore
 Maryland forces defeated his initial naval attacks on
southern Maryland
 He then tried to depose the Virginia governor and as a
result he lost his money-making offices, was removed as
commander of Kent Island and he returned to England
 The king recognized Kent Island to be part of Maryland
 Leonard Calvert placated Claiborne’s people by pardoning
their rebellion, recognizing their property rights and
involving some of them in the governance of the island
 In 1643, Claiborne returned to Virginia, was restored to his old
offices and was appointed a major general in the militia
Ingle’s Rebellion
 During the interim, the Maryland government was ineffectual in preventing
summer raids by the Susquehannocks
 This displeased the Protestant majority
 They viewed the Lord Proprietor’s rule as arbitrary
 They disliked the dominance of the Catholic manor lords
 They viewed the proprietor’s authority to adjourn the Maryland assembly as
analogous to the king’s authority to adjourn Parliament
 They were ready to revolt
 Richard Ingle became the catalyst for rebellion
 He controlled the largest share of the trade between the colony and London
 He was ardently anti-Catholic
 He supported the Parliamentary cause and in 1644 made a rash proclamation
in Maryland that Parliament was England’s true sovereign
 The Maryland government arrested him for treason and seized his ship
 After 4 hung juries, Ingle was allowed to return to London
Ingle’s Rebellion
 In London, Ingle received a privateering license from Parliament to seize ships
loyal to the crown
 Leonard Calvert went to Virginia to pursue his privateering commission
 Ingle plotted with Claiborne to overthrow the government of Maryland
 In February 1645, Ingle seized a Dutch ship in St. Mary’s City harbor, captured
Giles Brent and two Jesuits as hostages, and gained control of a fortified manor
 Ingle’s forces then launched a campaign to attack Catholic manors
 They successfully captured leading Jesuits and government officials, but
Leonard Calvert eluded them
 Both sides foraged for support and plundered each other’s strongholds and the
Catholic manors got the worst of it
 Ingle gained enough strength to sail to England to petition Parliament to revoke
Baltimore’s charter and to allow him to form a new government
 Law courts ruled against Ingle for the seized Dutch ship and other plundered
goods
 Parliament would not establish a new government in Maryland
Ingle’s Rebellion
 After Ingle had ousted the proprietor’s government, Protestants made Edward Hill, a
Virginian, governor
 He restored much of local government and called the assembly into session
 Leonard Calvert, who had been in Virginia, retook St. Mary’s City in the fall of 1646
without much opposition
 He retook Kent Island the following April
 He issued a general pardon contingent on each person taking an oath of fidelity to
the Lord Proprietor
 The “Plundering Time” of almost two years had a monumental effect on Maryland
 Nearly 4/5 the population of about 500 on the Western Shore was killed or fled
 The manorial system, with so many estates laid in waste, could not survive
 It marked the passing of a Catholic oligarchy
 The Jesuit missions were nearly destroyed and it would take over 20 years for them
to recover
 The Jesuits decided in 1647 to abandon the Maryland mission
 Thomas Copley, one of the captured Jesuits, returned before the decision
could reach him; he began the slow recovery
Recovery
Margaret Brent (~1601 - ~1671)
addressing the Maryland Assembly
by Edwin Tunis (c. 1934)
 Leonard Calvert died suddenly about 2 months after restoring
proprietary rule
 He appointed Thomas Greene as governor and Margaret
Brent as executrix of his estate
 Brent was forced to meet some government expenses
using personal Calvert property
 This angered Lord Baltimore, but she was
supported by the assembly
 Greene was a competent manager but
 He angered the assembly for requesting a large
salary and other perks
 He appeared to favor his fellow Catholics
 He sought personal gain from his office
 He alienated Baltimore by recognizing Charles
I’s son as the rightful ruler of England
Recovery

Lord Cecil Calvert (1605-1675)
by Florence MacKubin, 1910
Lord Baltimore realized he had to radically change the
government to survive in an England run by Puritans
 In 1648, he named a new council which had
 A Protestant majority
 No manorial lords
 Two members who had entered the colony as
indentured servants
 He appointed William Stone as governor. He was
 An Eastern Shore Virginian
 A Protestant
 Had worked with Ingle and Claiborne
 He brought about 500 Virginians to Maryland
 Stone recruited colonists to Maryland from other
colonies
 A group of ~500 Puritan Virginians, led by
Richard Bennett, came to Maryland to practice
their religion freely and hundreds more followed
in the years to come
 Bennett later became a Quaker and his
grandson was raised as a Catholic
Religious Freedom
 In the new environment, Baltimore needed more explicit guarantees of religious
freedom
 He instituted oaths for office holders requiring that they not disturb anyone's
religious beliefs
 In 1649, he had the assembly enact the Toleration Act that would insure freedom of
religious speech and the practices of Christians
 One of the most important provisions was that no one could be coerced to
practice “religion against his or her consent”
 It was the first law in the English-speaking world recognizing freedom of
worship
 However, it only tolerated religions believing in a Trinitarian God, i.e.,
Christians
Religious Faith of the Majority
of the Inhabitants
Maryland Remained Precarious
 Puritans would not take an oath supporting the Lord
Proprietor because he was a Catholic
 Claiborne and Bennett continued to strive for a
consolidated British Protestant colony
 Their armed forces ousted Stone until he recognized
Parliament’s authority
 Baltimore, sensing Cromwell’s power rising over the
Puritans, instructed Stone to replace some Puritans on
Maryland’s council
 Claiborne and Bennett again ousted Stone and
repealed the Toleration Act of 1649
 Baltimore gained influence in Cromwell’s ruling circle
 He instructed Stone to use armed force to retake St.
Mary’s City
 Maryland forces were beaten badly
William Stone (~1603 - ~1660),
detail from a painting in the
Maryland State Archives
Maryland Remained Precarious
Oliver Cromwell (1599 –1658)
by Samuel Cooper (1656)
 Baltimore’s success would depend on Oliver Cromwell’s
government recognizing his charter
 For two years, representatives of Baltimore vs. Bennett
and Claiborne would make their arguments before the
Council of State
 Each side solicited public support by means of a
pamphlet war
 Baltimore’s position was framed by his belief that
Cromwell favored religious freedom
 Cromwell had had the Act of Uniformity repealed
in 1650
 An agreement was reached in November, 1657 recognizing
Baltimore’s authority
 Baltimore in turn granted a general amnesty
 The Act of Toleration of 1649 was restored
 A 5 man council was formed with members from both
sides
The Restoration
 In 1658, Oliver Cromwell died and was succeeded by
his son, Richard, as Lord Protector
 Richard was not as strong a ruler as his father
and the army did not back him
 He was ousted after 7 months
 Various factions began fighting and attempted to
rekindle the Civil War
 On April 4, 1660, Charles II made the Declaration of
Breda in which he promised to govern England only
with the consent of Parliament
 Parliament then recognized him as king
beginning with the death of his father
 This essentially began the English constitutional
monarchy which survives until now
King Charles II (1630 – 1685)
by John Michael Wright, ~1662
Maryland Survived
 With Cromwell’s death in 1658, anti-proprietary members of Calvert’s
government began to assert the primacy of the Maryland Assembly
 The governor, council and assembly were to meet as one body with supreme
authority
 Baltimore countered by removing the governor and appointing his brother
Phillip as governor
 Also, an order from King Charles II commanded obedience to Calvert’s rule
 The proprietary government survived in Maryland because of the adroit
maneuvering of Cecil Calvert in England
 He had not come to the colony because he realized he could do more for it in
England
 Even so, Maryland was a very different place in 1660 than it had been in
1645
 New leaders were religiously mixed and more disparate in their social
origins