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Lord Baltimore, the Society of Jesus, and Caroline Absolutism in Maryland, 1630–1645

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Antoinette Sutto
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 631 - 652
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2009

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References

1 Maryland was one of several proprietary colonies in English America. Charles I had granted the Maryland charter to George Calvert, First Lord Baltimore and onetime secretary of state, in 1632. Calvert died that same year, and it was left to his son Cecil (1606–76) to organize emigration to the colony. During the period discussed here, there were between 500 and 1,000 European and African inhabitants of Maryland. McCusker, John J. and Menard, Russell R., The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1985), 119–38Google Scholar; Menard, Russell R., “Population, Economy and Society in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” Maryland Historical Magazine 79, no. 1 (Spring 1984): 71–92Google Scholar.

2 One exception to this has been David Jordan, who has discussed the Jesuits and their views of the proper treatment of the church by the secular government as a potential source of division and opposition during the earliest meetings of the Maryland assembly. Beitzell, Edward W., The Jesuit Missions of St. Mary's County (Leonardtown, MD, 1960), 8–11Google Scholar; Bossy, John, “Reluctant Colonists: The English Catholics Confront the Atlantic,” in Early Maryland in a Wider World, ed. Quinn, David B. (Detroit, 1982), 149–64, 161–64Google Scholar; Carrafiello, Michael, “Runnymede or Rome? Thomas Copley, Magna Carta and in Coena Domini,” Maryland Historian 16, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 1985): 59–69Google Scholar; Michael James Graham, “Lord Baltimore's Pious Enterprise: Toleration and Community in Colonial Maryland, 1634–1724” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1983), 53–57; Thomas Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus in North America: Colonial and Federal, 2 vols. (London, 1907–17), vol. 1, chap. 5; Jordan, David W., Foundations of Representative Government in Maryland, 1632–1715 (Cambridge, 1987), 39–46Google Scholar; Krugler, John, “Lord Baltimore, Roman Catholics and Toleration: Religious Policy in Maryland during the Early Catholic Years, 1630–1649,” Catholic Historical Review 65, no. 1 (January 1979): 47–95Google Scholar. Krugler, rightly, points to the need for political context in understanding the Calvert family's administration of their colony. The most recent treatment of Jesuit missionaries in colonial America does not even mention the dispute: Cushner, Nicholas P., Why Have You Come Here? The Jesuits and the First Evangelization of Native America (Oxford, 2006), chap. 9Google Scholar.

3 Bossy, John, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850 (London, 1975)Google Scholar, and “The English Catholic Community, 1603–1625,” in The Reign of James VI and I, ed. Alan G. R. Smith (London, 1973), 91–105; Hibbard, Caroline M., Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981)Google Scholar, and “Early Stuart Catholicism: Revisions and Re-revisions,” Journal of Modern History 52, no. 1 (March 1980): 1–34; Peter Lake, “Anti-popery: The Structure of a Prejudice,” in Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603–1642, ed. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (New York, 1989), 72–105; Questier, Michael, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006)Google Scholar.

4 Krugler, John, English and Catholic: The Lords Baltimore in the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore, 2004)Google Scholar.

5 Cust, Richard, Charles I: A Political Life (Harlow, 2005), chaps. 2 and 3Google Scholar.

6 On Charles I and the law, see Burgess, Glenn, Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution (New Haven, CT, 1996)Google Scholar, and The Politics of the Ancient Constitution: An Introduction to English Political Thought, 1600–1642 (Houndmills, 1992); Alan Cromartie, “The Constitutionalist Revolution: The Transformation of Political Culture in Early Stuart England,” Past and Present, no. 163 (May 1999): 76–120; Milton, Anthony, “Thomas Wentworth and the Political Thought of the Personal Rule,” in The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 1621–1641, ed. Merritt, Julia F. (Cambridge, 1996), 133–56Google Scholar; Pawlisch, Hans, Sir John Davies and the Conquest of Ireland: A Study of Legal Imperialism (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar; Pocock, J. G. A., The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1957)Google Scholar; Kevin Sharpe and Christopher Brooks, “Debate: History, English Law, and the Renaissance,” Past and Present, no. 72 (August 1976): 133–46; Sommerville, Johann P., Royalists and Patriots: Politics and Ideology in England, 1603–1640, 2nd ed. (London, 1999)Google Scholar.

7 On Charles I, loyalty, religion, and the politics of the personal rule, see Cust, Charles I, chap. 3; Kenneth Fincham, “The Judges’ Decision on Ship Money in February 1637: The Reaction of Kent,” Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research 57, no. 136 (November 1984): 230–37; Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot, chaps. 2–4; Peter Lake, “The Collection of Ship Money in Cheshire,” Northern History 17 (1981): 44–71; Milton, “Thomas Wentworth and the Political Thought of the Personal Rule.” For contrasting views see Sharpe, Kevin, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, CT, 1992), pt. 2Google Scholar.

8 Stuart, Charles, Eikon Basilike: The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings, ed. Knachel, Philip A. (Ithaca, NY, 1966), 89Google Scholar.

9 Ken MacMillan has noted this claim about the power of the prerogative in America but does not indicate how contentious such a claim actually was. MacMillan, Ken, Sovereignty and Possession in the English New World: The Legal Foundations of Empire, 1576–1640 (Cambridge, 2006), 98–99Google Scholar.

10 Kevin Sharpe and Mark Kishlansky have argued that Charles was doing nothing new or radical and that he certainly did not have an absolutist theory of government that he intended to put into practice. Glenn Burgess has argued that political differences were merely variations within a single unified political culture, while J. P. Somerville has argued, in contrast, that there were deep political divisions in early Stuart Britain and that it is fair to term Charles I and some of his supporters absolutists. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution, and Politics of the Ancient Constitution; Mark Kishlansky, “Tyranny Denied: Charles I, Attorney General Heath, and the Five Knights’ Case,” Historical Journal 42, no. 1 (March 1999): 53–83; Sharpe, Personal Rule; Somerville, Royalists and Patriots.

11 Recent scholarship on the Atlantic world of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has emphasized the need for this approach. See Armitage, David and Braddick, Michael J., eds., The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800 (Houndmills, 2002)Google Scholar, esp. the articles by Carla Gardina Pestana, Elizabeth Mancke, Michael Braddick, and Eliga H. Gould; Bailyn, Bernard, Atlantic History: Concept and Contours (Cambridge, MA, 2005)Google Scholar; Canny, Nicholas, “Writing Atlantic History; or, Reconfiguring the History of Colonial British America,” Journal of American History 86, no. 3 (December 1999): 1093–1114Google Scholar; Daniels, Christine and Kennedy, Michael V., eds., Negotiated Empires: Center and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500–1820 (New York, 2002)Google Scholar; Greene, Jack P., Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Developments in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607–1788 (Athens, GA, 1986)Google Scholar; Pestana, Carla Gardina, The English Atlantic in an Age of Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 2004)Google Scholar; Rhoden, Nancy K., ed., English Atlantics Revisited: Essays Honoring Professor Ian K. Steele (Montreal, 2007)Google Scholar; Steele, Ian K., The English Atlantic, 1675–1740: An Exploration of Communication and Community (New York, 1986)Google Scholar.

12 Bossy, English Catholic Community, 1570–1850, 49–59; Thomas M. McCoog, “The Society of Jesus in the Three Kingdoms,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits, ed. Thomas Worcester (Cambridge, 2008), 88–103, 92–97.

13 Questier, Michael, ed., Newsletters from the Caroline Court, 1631–1638: Catholicism and the Politics of the Personal Rule, Camden 5, vol. 26 (Cambridge, 2005), 1–37Google Scholar.

14 Allison, Antony Francis, “A Question of Jurisdiction: Richard Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon, and the Catholic Laity, 1625–31,” Recusant History 16, no. 2 (1982): 111–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 List of concerns of lay Catholics about the bishop's power, 1627, Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster (AAW) 20 (1626–27), 343–45.

16 Letter from Bishop Smith to English lay Catholics, 16 October 1627, AAW 20 (1626–27), 515–24.

17 Letter by Lord Arundell of Wardour regarding the bishop's claims, November 1627, AAW 20 (1626–27), 636, 667–68; letter from “Antonio” about Baltimore, 2 February 1632, AAW 26 (1632), 73–76.

18 See n. 1. John Bossy suggests that the Jesuits may have looked upon Maryland as “a possible refuge for English Jesuits if their campaign against Bishop Smith should fail,” but his article does not address the controversy of the late 1630s and early 1640s. Bossy, “Reluctant Colonists,” 162–64.

19 “A paper endorsed by Fitton,” 1 August 1632, AAW 26 (1632), 285–88.

20 Letter to Fitton in Rome, 1632, AAW 26 (1632), 71.

21 Letter to Fitton in Rome, 11 May 1632, AAW 26 (1632), 203–6. See also “Characteres Tobia & aliorum,” 1635, AAW 28 (1635–36), 223–26; and letter to Fitton, 10 August 1632, AAW 26 (1632), 301–2.

22 Thomas Hughes, ed., History of the Society of Jesus in North America: Colonial and Federal; Documents (London, 1907–17), pt. 1:7–10. For the French tract, see General desadveu des Catholiques lais d’Angleterre, AAW 22 (1628), 413–15. Under threat of arrest since 1628, Smith had moved to the French embassy, and in 1631 he fled England for France. Questier, Catholicism and Community, 462–67.

23 Questier, Catholicism and Community, chaps. 13 and 14, esp. 438–39, 464–65.

24 Hoepfel, Harro, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, 1540–1630 (Cambridge, 2004), 367CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Rossetti, Carlo, “The Catholic Mission in Maryland,” American Historical Review 12, no. 3 (April 1907): 584–87Google Scholar.

26 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:18–19.

27 Bireley, Robert, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts and Confessors (Cambridge, 2003), 1–32, 274–75Google Scholar.

28 Hughes, History, 1:355, and Documents, pt. 1:150–51.

29 Panzani supported Smith in the controversy of the 1620s. Bossy, English Catholic Community, 1570–1850, 58.

30 Beitzell, Jesuit Missions, 4; Fogarty, Gerald P., “The Origins of the Mission, 1634–1773,” in The Maryland Jesuits, 1634–1833, ed. Curran, Robert Emmett (Baltimore, 1976), 9–27Google Scholar.

31 Axtell, James, “White Legend: The Jesuit Missions in Maryland,” Maryland Historical Magazine 81, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 1–7, 2Google Scholar; Hughes, History, 1:333–44.

32 Baltimore to Leonard Calvert, 21–23 November 1642, in The Calvert Papers, vol. 1, Library of Congress American Memory Collection: Books on the Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C., 1600–1925 (Boston, 2006), Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.

33 Edward C. Papenfuse Jr., ed., Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 1, Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, January 1637/8–September 1664 (Annapolis, MD, 2006), 2, 5.

34 Copley to Baltimore, 3 April 1638, in Calvert Papers.

35 Susan Rosenfeld Falb, “Proxy Voting in Early Maryland Assemblies,” Maryland Historical Magazine 73, no. 3 (Fall 1978): 217–25.

36 Papenfuse, Archives of Maryland Online, 7–24.

37 Leonard Calvert to Baltimore, 25 April 1638, in Calvert Papers.

38 Copley to Baltimore, 3 April 1638, in Calvert Papers.

39 ibid.

40 With regard to the Jesuits’ land claims, Copley mentioned that Baltimore ought to deal with them “according to the first conditions which we made with your lordship.” This might seem to imply a previous agreement, but Copley mentioned it only in the context of land claims, arguing that the Jesuits had not claimed as much acreage as they might have according to the conditions of plantation offered to all settlers but wished to reserve their right to more should the occasion arise. No promises or assurances from Baltimore were cited in connection with ecclesiastical rights and privileges more generally. ibid.

41 ibid.

42 ibid. The land lottery that so upset Copley after the 1637/8 assembly seems to have vanished by February 1638/9, when there was no mention of it in assembly records, and no letters written after 1638 make any mention of it. Possibly it was no more than a rumor or an attempt by Baltimore, Lewgar, or others to put pressure on the Jesuits.

43 ibid.

44 Cornwaleys to Baltimore, 16 April 1638, in Calvert Papers.

45 ibid.

46 Hughes, History, 1:422–23, 492–93.

47 Lewgar to Baltimore, 5 January 1638/9, in Calvert Papers.

48 ibid.

49 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:158–61.

50 Hoepfel, Jesuit Political Thought, 55–56, 345–46; Po-chia Hsia, Ronnie, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2005), 108–9Google Scholar. Venice was placed under interdict by Pope Paul V in 1606–7 because the pope believed that the city had inappropriately expanded the sphere of secular jurisdiction. Venice had attempted to impose through legislation some secular control over the church's ability to buy and dispose of land; secular magistrates went so far as to arrest two priests who violated these laws.

51 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:158–61.

52 ibid.

53 Baltimore to Leonard Calvert, 21–23 November 1642, in Calvert Papers.

54 Papenfuse, Archives of Maryland Online, 40.

55 ibid., 73, 41–42, 63.

56 ibid., 41, 83.

57 ibid., 31, 75, 82–84.

58 ibid., 83.

59 Elfrieda Dubois, “Un Écossais, légat à la cour d’Angleterre: George Conn (1636–1640),” Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique 99, nos. 1–2 (1985): 5–20, 9; Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:22–24.

60 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:181–82.

61 ibid., pt. 1:183–87.

62 Cardinal Francis Barberini to Rossetti, 1 February 1642, Archivio Segreto Vaticano (ASV), Segr. Stato Inghilterra 4, fol. 85r; Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:183–87.

63 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:188.

64 Although evidence suggests that Baltimore drove a hard bargain even with the seculars, to the dismay of his sister Ann Peasley and her husband. Archives of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University, box 3, folder 4, items 5–8.

65 Baltimore to Leonard Calvert, 21–23 November 1642, in Calvert Papers.

66 English Provincial Knott to Baltimore, 22 September 1641, ASV, Segr. Stato Inghilterra 4, fols. 95r–96v.

67 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:162–63.

68 ibid., pt. 1:164–65. The document from which this account of the meeting is taken is usually titled “Extracts out of Mr. Lewgar's diary and letters to the Lord Baltimore.” The “good men” are by all indications the Maryland Jesuits.

69 ibid., pt. 1:166–68.

70 Edward Knott, notes for Rossetti about Baltimore's four points, ASV, Segr. Stato Inghilterra 4, fols. 81r–83v; Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:168–72.

71 On Charles I and the law, see n. 10.

72 Francis Silvius, memorandum on Indian lands issue in Maryland, AAW 30 (1641–54), fols. 87r–90r; Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:172–78.

73 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:190–91.

74 Baltimore to Leonard Calvert, 21–23 November 1642, in Calvert Papers. The Piscatoways represented perhaps the Jesuits’ greatest success as missionaries. Their king, his wife, and child were baptized in a lavish public ceremony in 1640. Otherwise, disease and a chronic shortage of staff severely limited the Jesuits’ successes. The best brief accounts of the Jesuit mission are Axtell, “White Legend”; Merrell, James H., “Cultural Continuity among the Piscataway Indians of Colonial Maryland,” William and Mary Quarterly 36, no. 4 (October 1979): 548–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Cushner, Why Have You Come Here? 175–78.

75 Baltimore to Leonard Calvert, 21–23 November 1642, in Calvert Papers.

76 Hughes, Documents, pt. 1:26–33.

77 See n. 10 on absolutism.