Leonard Calvert
Hon. Leonard Calvert was the first proprietary governor of the Province of Maryland, he was the second son of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, the first proprietor of Maryland. His elder brother Cecil, who inherited the colony and the title upon the death of their father George, April 15, 1632, appointed Leonard as governor of the Colony in his absence. Leonard was named after his grandfather, Leonard Calvert of Yorkshire. Leonard was born to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore and his wife Anne Mynne, was named in honor of his paternal grandfather, Leonard Calvert of Yorkshire. In 1625, when Calvert's father was created Lord Baltimore and received letters patent for the creation of a Province of Avalon in the island of Newfoundland from James I of England, he relocated part of his newly converted Roman Catholic family to Newfoundland Calvert accompanied his father to the new colony of Newfoundland in 1638; the colony failed due to disease, extreme cold, attacks by the French, the family returned to England.
After a few years, Baltimore declared Avalon a failure and traveled to the Colony of Virginia, where he found the climate much more suitable and temperate, but was met with an unwelcome reception from the Virginians' government and ruling class. In 1632, Baltimore returned to England, where he negotiated an additional patent for the colony of Maryland from King Charles I. However, before the papers could be executed, Baltimore died on April 15, 1632. On June 20, 1632, the second Lord Baltimore, received from the king the charter for the colony of Maryland that his father had negotiated; the charter consisted of 23 sections, but the most important conferred on Lord Baltimore and his heirs, besides the right of absolute ownership in the soil, certain powers, ecclesiastical as well as civil, resembling those possessed by the nobility of the Middle Ages. Leonard Calvert was appointed by his brother as the colony's first Governor. Two vessels, The Ark and The Dove, carrying over 300 settlers, sailed from the harbour of Cowes, England, on November 22, 1633, arriving at just inside the huge harbor and bay at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, between Cape Charles and Cape Henry and passed off "Point Comfort" at the mouths of the intersecting James and Elizabeth Rivers, in the colony of Virginia on February 24, 1634.
After exploring the area, a few weeks they sailed up the Potomac River, north of the Virginia shoreline and the southern border of their new colony and landed on the northern shore at Blakistone Island on March 25, 1634, erected a large cross, gave thanks and celebrated a Roman Catholic/Christian Mass with Father Andrew White who had accompanied them. Two days on March 27, they returned further south down-river near the point where the Potomac meets the Bay at what is now St. Mary's City the site of a Native American village of the Yaocomico branch of the Piscataway tribe, whom the paramount chief had moved away to accommodate the new English settlers, so as to take advantage of the trading opportunities of their more powerful technology: industries and implements, they began the work of establishing a settlement there. Following his brother's instructions, Leonard Calvert at first attempted to govern the country in an absolutist way, but in January 1635, he had to summon a colonial assembly, which became the foundation and first session of the modern General Assembly of Maryland, the third legislature to be established in the English colonies, after the House of Burgesses in the Dominion of Virginia, the General Court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In 1638, the Assembly forced him to govern according to the common law of England, subsequently the right to initiate legislation passed to the new General Assembly, representing the common "freeholders" as subjects of the Crown. In 1638, Calvert seized a trading post at Kent Island established by the Virginian William Claiborne. In 1643, Governor Calvert went to England to discuss policies with his brother Lord Baltimore, the proprietor, leaving the affairs of the colony in charge of acting Governor Giles Brent, his brother-in-law. Calvert returned to Maryland in 1644 with children; that same year, Claiborne returned and led an uprising of Maryland Protestants against the Catholic Proprietor. Calvert was soon forced to flee southward to Virginia, he reasserted proprietarial rule. Leonard Calvert died of an illness in the summer of 1647. Before he died, he wrote a will naming Margaret Brent as the executor of his estate. Calvert named his friend and fellow passenger aboard The Ark and The Dove, Thomas Greene, as his successor to the governorship.
In 1890, the State of Maryland erected an obelisk monument to Calvert and his wife at Historic St. Mary's City which had a historical district created to commemorate the colonial origins of the colony; the location of Leonard Calvert's grave has been lost to history, but there is an effort underway to find it. Archeologists based in the Historic St. Mary's City research complex believe that Leonard Calvert is buried somewhere in St. Inigoes, Maryland; the most spot has been narrowed down to somewhere on Webster Field, no
Benedict Leonard Calvert
Hon. Benedict Leonard Calvert was the 15th Proprietary Governor of Maryland from 1727 through 1731, appointed by his older brother, Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, he was named after Benedict Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore. Calvert had tuberculosis and died from it on board the family ship, The Charles, on 1 June 1732, while returning to his home in England, aged 31. Like many young aristocrats in 18th century England, Calvert was sent on a Grand Tour of Italy, travelling there from 1724–5. During this time he studied Italian architecture and antiquities, collecting many items which were sent back to the family home at Woodcote Park in Surrey. In 1727 the young Benedict Calvert was sent to Maryland by his older brother Lord Baltimore, with instructions to take over the governorship of the colony, replacing his cousin Captain Charles Calvert; the handover of power from cousin to cousin was not smooth. Captain Calvert insisted on retaining fifty percent of the 3 pence tobacco duty, his due under legislation passed in 1727.
Benedict was not impressed, his younger brother Cecilius wrote to him that family opinion in England was appalled at Captain Calvert's behaviour, "thinks him mad". Lord Baltimore himself wrote. Benedict Calvert was replaced as Governor by Samuel Ogle in 1731. On arrival in Maryland, Ogle wrote to Lord Baltimore that his brother was "much worse than I imagined, which I believe has not been mended much by the help of Physik, of which he takes more than anyone I knew in my life". Calvert was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in March, 1731. Calvert had tuberculosis and died of consumption on board the family ship, The Charles on 1 June 1732, while returning to his home in England, he was buried at sea. He left an estate worth around ten thousand pounds sterling, a large sum at the time, to his younger brother Cecilius Calvert. Calvert had no children of his own, but he was godfather to Elizabeth Calvert, daughter of his cousin Captain Charles Calvert. In his will, which he drew up before leaving Maryland, he left her a slave boy named Osmyn.
The town of Leonardtown, Maryland is named in his honor. Calvert family List of colonial governors of Maryland Province of Maryland Yentsch, Anne E, A Chesapeake Family and their Slaves: a Study in Historical Archaeology, Cambridge University Press Retrieved Jan 2010 RootsWeb Calvert Family Tree Retrieved Jul 10 2013 Lundy, Darryl. "Benedict Leonard Calvert at www.thepeerage.com". The Peerage. Retrieved January 30, 2010 Calvert family at www.sonofthesouth.net Retrieved January 30, 2010
Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore
Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, styled as The Hon. Frederick Calvert until 1751, was an English nobleman and last in the line of Barons Baltimore. Although he exercised feudal power in the Province of Maryland, he never once set foot in the colony and, unlike his father, he took little interest in politics, treating his estates, including Maryland as sources of revenue to support his extravagant and scandalous lifestyle. In 1768 he was accused of abduction and rape by Sarah Woodcock, a noted beauty who kept a milliner's shop at Tower Hill; the jury acquitted Calvert but he left England soon afterwards, never recovered from the public scandal which surrounded the trial. Dogged by criticism and poor health, he contracted a fever and died in Naples at the age of 40. Frederick Calvert was born in 1731, the eldest son of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, 3rd Proprietor Governor of Maryland, he was named after his godfather, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George II, father of George III.
The young Frederick was sent to Eton College to be educated, where he acquired some proficiency in the classics. Calvert had two sisters, the Hon. Caroline Calvert, born circa 1745, the Hon. Louisa Calvert. In 1751 Charles Calvert died, Frederick, aged just 20, inherited from his father the title Baron Baltimore and the Proprietary Governorship of the Province of Maryland, becoming at once both a wealthy nobleman in England and a powerful figure in America. Maryland was a colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain, administered directly by the Calverts. Frederick benefited from an income of around £10,000 a month from taxes and rents, an immense sum at the time. In addition he controlled shares in the Bank of England, an estate at Woodcote Park, in Surrey. Calvert's inheritance coincided with a period of rising discontent in Maryland, amid growing demands by the legislative assembly for an end to his family's authoritarian rule. Calvert, took little interest in the colony and, unlike his predecessors, never set foot there.
Instead, he lived in England and on the European continent in Italy and, for a time in Constantinople, whence he was forced to leave after being accused of keeping a private harem. Calvert lived a life of leisure, writing verse and regarding the Province of Maryland as little more than a source of revenue. During the 1750s, during the French and Indian War, when funds were needed to finance the common defence of the colonies, Maryland alone refused its share. Calvert was prepared to pass an Act only if his own vast estates were exempted. Benjamin Franklin wrote: "It is true, Maryland did not contribute its proportion, but it was, in my opinion, the fault of the Government, not of the people"; the colony was ruled through governors appointed by Calvert, such as Horatio Sharpe and Robert Eden. Governor Sharpe was keenly aware of the difficulties placed upon his subjects by Lord Baltimore's intransigence, but his hands were tied. Calvert oversaw the end of the long-running Penn–Calvert Boundary Dispute.
On 9 March 1753, he married Lady Diana Egerton, youngest daughter of Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater by Lady Rachel Russell. The union was not a success, the couple spent most of their married life apart, they had no children, in May 1756 they were formally separated, due to an "incompatibility of temper". In 1758, Lady Diana "died from a hurt she received by a fall out of a Phaeton carriage", while accompanied by her husband. Although Calvert was suspected of foul play, no charges were brought. Calvert's reputation for exotic living spread quickly. In 1764 James Boswell began his Grand Tour of Europe, having heard that Baltimore was "living at Constantinople like a Turk, with his seraglio all around him"." Boswell observed that Baltimore "... lived luxuriously and inflamed his blood he became melancholy and timorous, was taking medicines... he is living a strange, life, useless to his country, except when raised to a delirium, must soon destroy his constitution". Calvert spent a good deal of time in Italy, where the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann described him as being "one of those worn-out beings, a hipped Englishman, who had lost all physical and moral taste".
Such was Calvert's fascination with the Ottoman Turks that in 1766, on his return to England, he pulled down part of his London house, rebuilding it in the style of a Turkish harem. In 1767 Calvert published an account of his travels in the East, titled A tour to the East, in the years 1763 and 1764: with Remarks on the City of Constantinople and the Turks. Select Pieces of Oriental Wit and Wisdom; the book, said Horace Walpole, "deserved no more to be published than his bills on the road for post-horses", adding that it demonstrated how "a man may travel without observation, be an author without ideas". Calvert's spending was prodigious, he spent considerable sums of money on his family estate at Woodcote Park. According to Walpole, Calvert spent a great deal of money making the interior of the house "tawdry" and "ridiculous" in the'French' style. In 1768, Calvert was accused of abduction and rape by Sarah Woodcock, a noted beauty who kept a milliner's shop at Tower Hill, he was indicted at Kingston Assizes, put on trial, pleading not guilty by reason of consent.
After deliberating for an hour and twenty minutes the jury acquitted Calvert, believing that Woodcock did not make adequate attempts to escape. Much salacious gossip accompanied the trial, in the same year one of Calvert's mistresses, Sophia Watson, wrote an autobiography titled Memoirs of the Seraglio of
Kingdom of Great Britain
The Kingdom of Great Britain called Great Britain, was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800. The state came into being following the Treaty of Union in 1706, ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands; the unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government, based in Westminster. The former kingdoms had been in personal union since James VI of Scotland became King of England and King of Ireland in 1603 following the death of Elizabeth I, bringing about the "Union of the Crowns". After the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the kingdom was in a personal union with the Electorate of Hanover; the early years of the unified kingdom were marked by Jacobite risings which ended in defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746.
In 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the dominance of the British Empire, to become the foremost global power for over a century and grew to become the largest empire in history. The Kingdom of Great Britain was replaced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801 with the Acts of Union 1800; the name Britain descends from the Latin name for the island of Great Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons via the Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The term Great Britain was first used in 1474; the use of the word "Great" before "Britain" originates in the French language, which uses Bretagne for both Britain and Brittany. French therefore distinguishes between the two by calling Britain la Grande Bretagne, a distinction, transferred into English; the Treaty of Union and the subsequent Acts of Union state that England and Scotland were to be "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain", as such "Great Britain" was the official name of the state, as well as being used in titles such as "Parliament of Great Britain".
Both the Acts and the Treaty describe the country as "One Kingdom" and a "United Kingdom", which has led some much publications into the error of treating the "United Kingdom" as a name before it came into being in 1801. The websites of the Scottish Parliament, the BBC, others, including the Historical Association, refer to the state created on 1 May 1707 as the United Kingdom of Great Britain; the term United Kingdom was sometimes used during the 18th century to describe the state, but was not its name. The kingdoms of England and Scotland, both in existence from the 9th century, were separate states until 1707. However, they had come into a personal union in 1603, when James VI of Scotland became king of England under the name of James I; this Union of the Crowns under the House of Stuart meant that the whole of the island of Great Britain was now ruled by a single monarch, who by virtue of holding the English crown ruled over the Kingdom of Ireland. Each of the three kingdoms maintained laws.
Various smaller islands were in the king's domain, including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. This disposition changed when the Acts of Union 1707 came into force, with a single unified Crown of Great Britain and a single unified parliament. Ireland remained formally separate, with its own parliament, until the Acts of Union 1800; the Union of 1707 provided for a Protestant-only succession to the throne in accordance with the English Act of Settlement of 1701. The Act of Settlement required that the heir to the English throne be a descendant of the Electress Sophia of Hanover and not be a Catholic. Legislative power was vested in the Parliament of Great Britain, which replaced both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. In practice it was a continuation of the English parliament, sitting at the same location in Westminster, expanded to include representation from Scotland; as with the former Parliament of England and the modern Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Parliament of Great Britain was formally constituted of three elements: the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Crown.
The right of the English peerage to sit in the House of Lords remained unchanged, while the disproportionately large Scottish peerage was permitted to send only 16 representative peers, elected from amongst their number for the life of each parliament. The members of the former English House of Commons continued as members of the British House of Commons, but as a reflection of the relative tax bases of the two countries the number of Scottish representatives was reduced to 45. Newly created peers in the Peerage of Great Britain were given the automatic right to sit in the Lords. Despite the end of a separate parliament for Scotland, it retained its own laws and system of courts, As its own established Presbyterian Church, control over its own schools; the social structure was hierarchical, the same elite remain in control after 1707. Scotland continued to have its own excellent universities, with the strong intellectual community in Edinburgh, The Scottish Enlightenment had a major impact on British and European thinking.
As a result of Poynings' Law of 1495, the Parliament of Ireland was subordinate to the Parliament of England, after 1707 to the Parliament of Great Britain. The Westminster parliament's Declaratory Act 1719 (also called the Dependency of Ireland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U. S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, 25 miles south of Baltimore and about 30 miles east of Washington, D. C. Annapolis is part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area, its population was measured at 38,394 by the 2010 census. This city served as the seat of the Confederation Congress and temporary national capital of the United States in 1783–1784. At that time, General George Washington came before the body convened in the new Maryland State House and resigned his commission as commander of the Continental Army. A month the Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War, with Great Britain recognizing the independence of the United States; the city and state capitol was the site of the 1786 Annapolis Convention, which issued a call to the states to send delegates for the Constitutional Convention to be held the following year in Philadelphia.
Over 220 years the Annapolis Peace Conference, was held in 2007. Annapolis is the home of St. John's College, founded 1696. A settlement in the Province of Maryland named "Providence" was founded on the north shore of the Severn River on the middle Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in 1649 by Puritan exiles from the Province/Dominion of Virginia led by third Proprietary Governor William Stone; the settlers moved to a better-protected harbor on the south shore. The settlement on the south shore was named "Town at Proctor's," "Town at the Severn," and "Anne Arundel's Towne". In 1654, after the Third English Civil War, Parliamentary forces assumed control of the Maryland colony and Stone went into exile further south across the Potomac River in Virginia. Per orders from Charles Calvert, fifth Lord Baltimore, Stone returned the following spring at the head of a Cavalier royalist force, loyal to the King of England. On March 25, 1655, in what is known as the Battle of the Severn, Stone was defeated, taken prisoner, replaced by Lt. Gen. Josias Fendall as fifth Proprietary Governor.
Fendall governed Maryland during the latter half of the Commonwealth period in England. In 1660, he was replaced by Phillip Calvert as fifth/sixth Governor of Maryland, after the restoration of Charles II as King in England. In 1694, soon after the overthrow of the Catholic government of second Royal Governor Thomas Lawrence third Royal Governor Francis Nicholson, moved the capital of the royal colony, the Province of Maryland, to Anne Arundel's Towne and renamed the town Annapolis after Princess Anne of Denmark and Norway, soon to be the Queen Anne of Great Britain. Annapolis was incorporated as a city in 1708.17th-century Annapolis was little more than a village, but it grew for most of the 18th century until the American Revolutionary War as a political and administrative capital, a port of entry, a major center of the Atlantic slave trade. The Maryland Gazette, which became an important weekly journal, was founded there by Jonas Green in 1745. Water trades such as oyster-packing and sailmaking became the city's chief industries.
Annapolis is home to a large number of recreational boats that have replaced the seafood industry in the city. Dr. Alexander Hamilton was a Scottish-born writer who lived and worked in Annapolis. Leo Lemay says his 1744 travel diary Gentleman's Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton is "the best single portrait of men and manners, of rural and urban life, of the wide range of society and scenery in colonial America." Annapolis became the temporary capital of the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Congress was in session in the state house from November 26, 1783 to June 3, 1784, it was in Annapolis on December 23, 1783, that General Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. For the 1783 Congress, the Governor of Maryland commissioned John Shaw, a local cabinet maker, to create an American flag; the flag is different from other designs of the time. The blue field extends over the entire height of the hoist. Shaw created two versions of the flag: one which started with a red stripe and another that started with a white one.
In 1786, delegates from all states of the Union were invited to meet in Annapolis to consider measures for the better regulation of commerce. Delegates from only five states—New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware—actually attended the convention, known afterward as the "Annapolis Convention." Without proceeding to the business for which they had met, the delegates passed a resolution calling for another convention to meet at Philadelphia in the following year to amend the Articles of Confederation. The Philadelphia convention drafted and approved the Constitution of the United States, still in force. On April 24, 1861, the midshipmen of the Naval Academy relocated their base in Annapolis and were temporarily housed in Newport, Rhode Island until October 1865. In 1861, the first of three camps that were built for holding paroled soldiers was created on the campus of St. John's College; the second location of Camp Parole would
Governor of Maryland
The governor of the State of Maryland heads the executive branch of the government of the State of Maryland, is the commander-in-chief of the state's National Guard units. The governor is the highest-ranking official in the state and has a broad range of appointive powers in both the state and local governments, as specified by the Maryland Constitution; because of the extent of these constitutional powers, the governor of Maryland has been ranked as being among the most powerful governors in the United States. The current governor is Larry Hogan, a Republican who took office on January 21, 2015. Like most state chief executives in the United States, the governor is elected by the citizens of Maryland to serve a four-year term. Under the Constitution of Maryland, the governor can run any number of times, but not more than twice in a row; this makes it possible for a two-term governor to run for the office again after remaining out of office for at least one term. An eligible candidate for governor must be at least 30 years old, a resident of and a registered voter in Maryland for the five years preceding the election.
If a candidate meets this minimum requirement, he or she must file his or her candidacy with the Maryland State Board of Elections, pay a filing fee, file a financial disclosure, create a legal campaign financial body. The governor, like all statewide officials in Maryland, is elected in the even-numbered years in which the election for President of the United States does not occur; as the chief executive of the State of Maryland, the governor heads the executive branch of government, which includes all state executive departments and agencies, as well as advisory boards, commissions and task forces. The main constitutional responsibility of the governor of Maryland, any other State's chief executive, is to carry out the business of the state and to enforce the laws passed by the Legislature; the governor has some say in these laws, since the governor has the ability to veto any bill sent to his or her desk by the Maryland General Assembly, though the assembly may override that veto. The governor is given a number of more specific powers as relates to appropriations of state funds, the appointment of state officials, a variety of less prominent and less utilized powers.
Every year, the governor must present a proposed budget to the Maryland General Assembly. After receiving the proposed budget, the assembly is allowed to decrease any portion of the budget for the executive branch, but it may never increase it or transfer funds between executive departments; the assembly may, increase funds for the Legislative and Judicial branches of government. The governor has the power to veto any law, passed by the General Assembly, including a "line item veto", which can be used to strike certain portions of appropriations bills; the Legislature has the power to override a Governor's veto by vote of three-fifths of the number of members in each house. The governor sits on the board of public works, whose other two members are the comptroller and the treasurer; this board has broad powers in approving the spending of state funds. They must approve state expenditures of all general funds and capital improvement funds, excluding expenditures for the construction of state roads and highways.
It has the power to solicit loans on its own accord either to meet a deficit or in anticipation of other revenues, in addition to approving expenditures of funds from loans authorized by the General Assembly. The governor appoints all military and civil officers of the state government, subject to advice and consent of the Maryland State Senate; the governor appoints certain boards and commissions in each of the 24 Counties and in Baltimore City, such as local Boards of Elections, commissions notaries public, appoints officers to fill vacancies in the elected offices of Attorney General and Comptroller. Should a vacancy arise in either of the two houses of the General Assembly, the governor fills that vacancy, though the governor must choose from among the recommendations of the local party organization to which the person leaving the vacancy belonged. Any officer appointed by the governor, except a member of the General Assembly, is removable by him or her, if there is a legitimate cause for removal.
Among the most prominent of the governor's appointees are the 24 secretaries and heads of departments that make up the governor's Cabinet known as the executive council. The governor of Maryland is the chairman of the governor's executive council which coordinates all state government functions; this is composed of the following members, all of whom, except the lieutenant governor, are appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Maryland State Senate as heads of executive departments: Lieutenant governor- Boyd Rutherford Secretary of State- John C. Wobensmith Secretary of Aging- Rona E. Kramer Secretary of Agriculture- Joe Bartenfelder Secretary of Budget and Management- David Brinkley Secretary of Business and Economic Development- R. Michael Gill Secretary of Disabilities-Carol Beatty State Superintendent of Schools - Lillian M. Lowery Secretary of Environment- Ben Grumbles Secretary of General Services- C. Gail Bassette Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene- Van Mitchell Secretary of Housing and Community Development- Kenneth C. Holt Secretary of Human Resources- Sam Maholtra Secretary of Information Technology- David Garcia Secretary of Juvenile Services- Sam J. Abed Secretary of Labor and Regulation- Kelly Schulz Secretary of Natural Resources- Mark Belton Secretary of Planni
