page_title: Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore / Family
context_page_description: Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, FRS was a British nobleman and Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland. He inherited the title to Maryland aged just fifteen, on the death of his father and grandfather, when the colony was restored by the British Monarchy to the Calvert family's control, following its seizure in 1688. In 1721 Charles came of age and assumed personal control of Maryland, travelling there briefly in 1732. For most of his life he remained in England, where he pursued an active career in politics, rising to become Lord of the Admiralty from 1742 to 1744. He died in 1751 in England, aged 52.
context_section_description: On 20 July 1730 Charles married Mary Janssen, who died at Chaillot, Paris, on 25 March 1770, the daughter of Sir Theodore Janssen, 1st Baronet, and Williamza or Williamsa Henley, who was also the sister-in-law of Thomas Bladen. Charles and Mary had three children:
  Frederick Calvert (6 February 1731 – 4 September 1771) who succeeded his father to become the 6th and final Lord Baltimore, but led a life of idleness, indulgence and scandal.
  Caroline Calvert, born ca. 1745, who on 26 April 1763 married Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet, of Maryland, the last colonial governor of Maryland. His rule was overthrown during the events of the American Revolution in 1774–6.
  Louisa Calvert, married John Browning. On the death of her brother Frederick in 1771, Louisa contested his will, arguing that she should inherit the proprietorship of Maryland, rather than Frederick's illegitimate son Henry Harford. Before the suit could be decided, Maryland was part of the independent United States of America.
  Charles also had an illegitimate son, Benedict Swingate Calvert, born in around 1730–32. His mother's identity is not clear but H. S. Lee Washington, writing in the New England Historic Genealogical Society Register in July 1950, suggests that she was Melusina von der Schulenburg, Countess of Walsingham. Melusina was the daughter of George I of England and his mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal.
  Whatever the truth of this, it seems likely that Calvert's mother was a person of some consequence. According to a letter of Benedict's daughter-in-law Rosalie Stier Calvert dated 10 June 1814, his mother had been a woman "of the highest rank in England".
  In 1742, aged about ten or twelve years, the young Benedict was escorted to America and placed in the care of Dr. George H. Steuart, an Annapolis physician and a political ally of the Calverts.
  It appears Charles Calvert had two additional illegitimate children by Cecil Mignon Bressan (b. 1717), daughter of Peter Bressan: Charles Cecil Bressan Calvert and Augustus Bressan Calvert.
caption: Benedict Swingate Calvert, painted by John Wollaston c. 1754
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