page_title: Battle of the Severn
section_title: Royal proprietorship
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of the Severn / Background / Royal proprietorship
caption_attribution_description: English: Painting of Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (Cecil Calvert)
context_page_description: The Battle of the Severn was a skirmish fought on March 25, 1655, on the Severn River at Horn Point, across Spa Creek from Annapolis, Maryland, in what at that time was referred to as the Puritan settlement of "Providence", and what is now the neighborhood of Eastport.
  It was an extension of the conflicts that formed the English Civil War, pitting the forces of Puritan settlers against forces aligned with Lord Baltimore, then Lord Proprietor of the colony of Maryland. It has been suggested by Radmila May that this was the "last battle of the English Civil War."
context_section_description: Maryland was founded by the first Baron Baltimore, who had previously been the principal secretary to James I.  Baltimore resigned from his position after the death of James I following his conversion to Catholicism.  After a visit to what would be Maryland in 1628, Baltimore requested that Charles I make a grant of land for a colony in which Catholics could worship freely. Following Baltimore's death on June 20, 1632, the grant of land was made to Cecil Calvert, now the new Lord Baltimore.
  The Charter of Maryland was unique in that it made Lord Baltimore and his heirs the "absolute Lords and Proprietaries" of the new colony. In effect, the grant created a county palatine, and, indeed, the name of Durham, a county palatine in its own right, is used in the charter.  The effect of this document was to create a semi-independent colony, ruled by Lord Baltimore as Duke.
  Sending his brother Leonard Calvert, the first settlers, a party of Catholic gentry and Protestants, of the new colony landed in present-day St. Mary's City on March 27, 1634. Using his absolute powers bestowed by charter, Cecil Calvert named his brother as royal governor of the new colony, a post he held from 1634–44, and again from 1646 until his death in 1647.
  William Claiborne, however, had an earlier claim to Kent Island arising from 1631 when he had landed and set up a fur trading post on behalf of the colony of Virginia.  Using the language of the charter that allowed him to take possession of land between the Delaware Bay and Potomac River "not cultivated or planted", Cecil Calvert lay claim to Kent Island. Following the arrest of one of his agents for trading in Maryland waters without a license in 1635, Claiborne fitted out an armed ship, and there ensued a naval battle on April 23, 1635 by the mouth of the Pocomoke River. Following this battle, Leonard Calvert captured Kent Island by force in February 1638.
  The ensuing fallout from the capture of Kent Island, and the vengefulness of Claiborne, would resonate through Maryland for many years to follow.
caption: Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, 1st Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland
exif: {}