Protestants Ransack Maryland

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Calvert Colony Maryland
Surnames/tags: Earle Erle

Contents 1 Puritans in Colonial Virginia 2 Protestants Ransack Maryland 2.1 Background on St. Mary's City 2.2 1645 - Protestants Ransack Maryland 2.3 Religious Tolerance and Acceptance of Protestants in Maryland.

Puritans in Colonial Virginia

In the 1620s and 1630s, several hundred Puritan men and women emigrated from England and settled in Virginia. Puritans protested the retention of certain Catholic practices in the Church of England and sought religious reform. As the Crown began to enforce conformity to the established church, English Puritans looked to Virginia both as a land of opportunity and as a haven where they could form godly communities of fellow believers and worship in churches without what they perceived as extraneous ceremony. These men and women mainly settled south of the James River.

By early in the 1640s, a large Puritan community had settled south of the James in the counties of Isle of Wight, Upper Norfolk (designated Nansemond in 1646), and Lower Norfolk, where they planted tobacco, elected men to the House of Burgesses, and even had a presence on the governor’s Council with the appointment of Richard Bennett in 1642.

Sir William Berkeley arrived as governor in 1642. Berkeley, under orders from King Charles I, began to push almost immediately for religious uniformity and adherence to the Anglican church.

As in other parts of Virginia, there were not enough ministers to serve the area’s parishioners (a statistic from 1650 estimates one minister in the colony for every 3,239 Virginians), leading Philip Bennett to travel in 1642 to Massachusetts Bay Colony with a petition, signed by some seventy persons, requesting that three Puritan pastors relocate to Upper Norfolk County. A personal letter to the Reverend John Davenport of New Haven from William Durand, one of the forty people Richard Bennett brought to Virginia in 1635, suggests the Puritan mindset of the day and conveys why the Puritans may have requested the New England ministers.

John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts Bay, granted the Virginia Puritans’ request, noting that the people of New England now had the opportunity to ensure the “advancement of the kingdom of Christ in those parts.” In January 1643, the New England ministers—William Thompson, John Knowles, and Thomas James—arrived in Jamestown. Winthrop wrote that, upon their arrival, the dispatched ministers “found very loving and liberal entertainment … by some well disposed people who desired their company.”

Between 1643 and 1649, a series of controversies, legal challenges, and local power struggles arose between Puritans and Anglicans, exacerbated by news of the English Civil Wars.

Berkeley was fiercely loyal to King Charles I, who sought to prevent in Virginia the type of religious and political unrest that had led to civil war in England. Berkeley had been ordered to oppose any religious nonconformity within Virginia. The colony’s ministers were to swear an oath of allegiance to the Church of England; those who did not would be expelled. A short time after the New England ministers’ arrival, according to their contemporary Edward Johnson, “the Governour and some other malignant spirits” ordered “all nonconformists” out of the colony. Before the year was out, the three men returned to New England, taking some Nansemond Puritans with them.

Intolerance toward Puritan believers resulted in the expulsion of several Puritan clergymen and at least one lay preacher, and, by 1650, led most Virginia Puritans to abandon the colony for Maryland.

Protestants Ransack Maryland

Background on St. Mary's City

St. Mary's City was the home to the first Maryland Colony and the first capitol of the Colony of Maryland. It was settled by English Catholics and is considered to be the birthplace of New World Catholicism in North America at a time when the British colonies were settled primarily by Protestants. The name was specifically chosen in honor of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, an English nobleman, founded the settlement as a refuge for English Roman Catholics who wanted to flee protestant England. Maryland became a haven for Catholics in the New World, particularly important during a time of religious persecution in England.

The first Maryland colony began with passengers from England who arrived on March 25, 1634, at Blakistone Island (later called St. Clement's Island) in the Potomac River in southwestern St. Mary's County. The passengers arrived in two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, that had set sail from the Isle of Wight on November 22, 1633. There were two Jesuit priests (including Father Andrew White) and nearly 200 settlers aboard the ships which set out across the Atlantic Ocean.

St. Clement's was used as a base for the settlers while scouting for a more suitable site. This was how a bluff overlooking the nearby St. Mary's River was chosen for numerous reasons and became the site of the first permanent settlement. It would soon be named "St. Mary's City."

Lord Baltimore had received a Charter from King Charles I for the new colony of Maryland. Still, supporters in England of the Virginia colony opposed the Charter, as they had little interest in having a competing colony to the north. Rather than going to the colony himself, Lord Baltimore stayed behind in England to deal with the political threat and sent his next younger brother Leonard Calvert in his stead. Lord Baltimore never actually traveled to Maryland.

The Virginia colony disputed the charter for a Maryland colony claiming their Virginia charter, which pre-dated the Maryland charter included the entirety of the land of the new Maryland colony, which had previously been included within the domains described as a part of Virginia.

The dispute over land and the claims of Virginia settlers is what prompted the actions of Richard Ingle in 1645.

1645 - Protestants Ransack Maryland

On February 14, 1645 - a group of Protestant men left Virginia aboard the ship Reformation, with Richard Ingle leading.

They were armed with "letters of marque" from the English Parliament.

Letters of marque are a license to fit out an armed vessel and use it in the capture of enemy merchant shipping and to commit acts that would otherwise have constituted piracy.

They succeed in seizing St Mary's City, the capital of the governor of Maryland.

The overthrown governor, Leonard Calvert, was not in St. Mary's at the time and was informed of his defeat in Virginia, where he is staying.

Several buildings in the city were destroyed, and acting Governor Giles Brent, who was sailing in the Bay aboard the Dutch ship "Der Spiegel" was made prisoner, and the boat was looted.

On acting Governor Giles Brent's side, Captain Thomas Cornwallis was in command of defending the city.

Although Captain Thomas Cornwallis had for many years had a good relationship with Richard Ingle, he made the bitter acknowledgment of his failure and returned to England, where he died in 1675.

Richard Ingle took control of the colony, and his men shared the properties of the wealthy Catholic settlers claiming that he had the power to seize them from the new government.

As the Maryland settlers accused him of being a pirate, he retaliated by imprisoning the two Jesuit priests, Father Thomas Coley and Father Andrew White, before expelling them to England in chains.

Aware of the damage he had just caused, Richard Ingle planned to go back to England with the catholic priests to justify before the Parliament the existence of a papist plot to clear himself.

On April 2, 1645, Richard Ingle set sail for England aboard the Reformation with his booty and a load of tobacco.

He carried with him the former governor Giles Brent, secretary of the colony John Lewgar, and both Jesuit fathers.

He arrived in London in June, but Ingle did not find the expected support from the Parliamentarians.

Richard Ingle then agreed to meet with Thomas Cornwallis, who had just returned to England.

Thomas Cornwallis, who had owned a house in St. Mary's, demanded at court the repayment of the destruction of his property.

The Court showed no sympathy towards Richard Ingle and refused to take his hostages as prisoners.

He tried to defend himself by suing, submitting that he had acted only in the interests of the Parliament.

The court procedure lasted two years, and Ingle was finally condemned to pay off the owners of the Spiegel and to compensate all his victims.

Having lost everything, he was never able to return to America.

On December 25th, 1645 - through its Committee for the Foreign Plantations, the English Parliament signs an order to place the province of Maryland under the supervision of Protestants.

Religious Tolerance and Acceptance of Protestants in Maryland.

In 1649, probably as a response to the events of 1645 and the growing hostility towards the territorial disputes, the Maryland colony passed the "Maryland Toleration Act," also known as the "Act Concerning Religion," mandating "religious tolerance" for Trinitarian Christians (Catholic or Protestant). But it only included those who profess faith in the "Holy Trinity" – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, excluding any Nontrinitarian beliefs or those who did not belong to the Church of England.

It was passed on 21 September 1649 by the General Assembly of the Maryland colony, it was the first law establishing at least a measure of "religious tolerance" in the British North American colonies. The real goal of the Calvert family was the enactment of the law to protect Catholic settlers from what they deemed Nonconformist Protestants.

Source References:

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/puritans-in-colonial-virginia/

http://gerard-tondu.blogspot.com/2015/10/1645-protestants-take-over-maryland.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Calvert,_2nd_Baron_Baltimore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_County,_Maryland