The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1940-01-04

unable to obtain an audience with
King Charles, who was seriously i'll at
the time and died shortly thereafter.
Deprived OF Own Colony
Upon his ascension to the throne, in
1886, being a Catholic, King James II
found himself very unpopular with the
masses of the English people who were
predominately Protestant. The feeling
against James became more and more
intense and resulted in bringing on
the "Bloodless Revolution" in 1888,
when he was deposed by an act of Par
lament and sent into exile. The Pro-
testants then seized control of the
Government and one of the results
which followed this movement was an
act depriving Lord Baltimore of jur
isdiction over his Maryland Colony.
For some twenty years thereafter, the
affairs of the colony were admins
tered by governors appointed by the
Crown With these conditions work
ing against him, the Third Lord Bal
timore was helpless in his efforts to
overcome the influences favoring
Penn on the part of the King and the
Duke, in addition to the prejudice in
the minds of the Puritanical popula-
ton against Calvert for his Catholi-
cism. He did not return to his Mary
land Colony and died in England in
the year 1715.
Sir Charles Calvert was succeeded
by his son, Sir Benedict Calvert, as
Lord Baltimore the Fourth in 1715, and
as the latter had severed his allegi-
ance to the Catholic Church by be-
coming member of the Church of
England, King George l promptly re-
stored to him all of the proprietary
rights to the Maryland Colony, with
every condition contained in the orig
inal charter from King Charles l to
his great-grandfather Sir George Cal
vert, in the year 1881, entirely REIN
stated. The short reign of Sir Bene-
dict Leonard Calvert as Lord Balti-
more the Fourth, came to sudden end
by his demise in IT'S, only six weeks
following the death of his father; and
thus there is little of record to relate
as far as his colonial activities affect
ing Maryland are concerned.
Fifth Lord Lacked Stamina
The Fifth Lord Baltimore was Sir
Benedict Leonard's son Charles, who
was named for his grandfather. It
was 1715, and rather late for the Cal
verts to try to retrieve their rights
which had been so fagrantly violated
| by William Penn, whose unjust acts
had been so effectively condoned by
Charles II and his brother James, the
Duke of York, many years earlier,
Besides, this second Charles Calvert
was very much of weakling. He was
the illegitimate grandson of King
Charles II, through his maternal
grandmother, who was one Of the
Kings illegitimate daughters. He
came to Maryland in the spring of
1882, but after remaining only about
six months, he returned to England.
He was regarded as vain, frivolous
and dissolute, and shortly after his
return home, he stupidity allowed the
sons Of William Penn to talk him into
and agreement to fix the boundary line
between Maryland and Pennsylvania
at point some fifteen miles south Of
the southern limits of the City of Phil
adelphia, knowing quite we'll, as the
younger Penns did, that that would
lap into the territory which their
father had unlawfully secured from
the Duke of York more than thirty
years before.
When the residents of Maryland
learned of this foolish agreement
which Sir Charles had reached with
the Penns, strenuous objections were
raised and the matter continued to
drag along unsettled for another per-
iod of thirty years. Then, in 1853,
commissioners representing the two
colonies were appointed to undertake
a final settlement of the question,
but by that time, Pennsylvania laws
and regulations had become so thor
oughly implanted in the disputed re-
gions and the people living there had
been paying their taxes for so many
years to the Pennsylvania authori-
ties, that few of them indeed, felt any
loyalty at all to the Maryland Colony
Besides, Lord Baltimore the Sixth
who was then reigning head of the pro-
prietary, had shown himself to be I
man quite devoid of moral stamina
and so very incapable of waging a
successful fight for his rights before
the Court of King George III, that
the Maryland representative of the
boundary commission could do pract:
cally nothing towards obtaining JUS
tice from the home government.
MasOn-DixOn Line Resulted
Accordingly they were compelled to
concede to Pennsylvania about 70OJ