Barony of Baltimore | |
---|---|
Creation date | 1625 |
Created by | James I |
Peerage | Peerage of Ireland |
First holder | Sir George Calvert |
Last holder | Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore |
Remainder to | Heirs male of the body lawfully begotten |
Extinction date | 4 September 1771 |
Baron Baltimore, of Baltimore, County Longford, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1625 and ended in 1771, upon the death of its sixth-generation male heir, aged 40. Holders of the title were usually known as Lord Baltimore for short.
The title was granted in 1625 to Sir George Calvert, and it became extinct in 1771 on the death of Frederick, 6th Baron Baltimore. [1] The title was held by six members/generations of the Calvert family, who were proprietors of the palatinates Avalon in Newfoundland and Maryland Palatinate (later the Province of Maryland and American State of Maryland). [2]
A reference to "Lord Baltimore" is to any one of the six barons and most frequently in U.S. history to Cecil, 2nd Baron Baltimore, after whom the city of Baltimore, Maryland was named, [3] which took place in his lifetime due to his family's holdings. His father had supported colonization of the territory, and his younger brother, Leonard, was the first Governor of Maryland. [3]
As holders of an Irish peerage, the Lords Baltimore had a seat, if they wished to take it up, in the medieval-founded Irish House of Lords, which was abolished in 1801 when the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came into being. Irish peerages were usually awarded to major landowners likely to support the status quo in Ireland, others involved in the various economic, social, and military campaigns in Ireland, such as the Plantations of Ireland, and finally also as a way of giving people in Great Britain the honour of a peerage which did not also grant a seat in the English, later British, House of Lords, thereby excluding them from sitting in the House of Commons at Westminster. Irish peers ranged between people owning little or no property in Ireland to those having their main homes and large estates there.
In the British Isles, the family's main home was a landscaped mansion and estate ("park") in the Home Counties. In 1705, the 4th Baron sold to the Crown a house and gardens (owned by virtue of his wife) known as Woodstock Park, which was promptly demolished and replaced by Blenheim Palace, a site regally granted to the victorious Duke of Marlborough as a gift. [4] It swiftly became the only private mansion termed a palace in England; however, this loss was partially recouped when the 4th Baron inherited an additional manor house and farm in Epsom, Surrey, on the death of his distant cousin Lady Ann(s) Lewknor (née Mynne), his father having already owned, since 1692, from the death of Elizabeth Evelyn (née Mynne), a mid-17th century-built neighbouring fine house known as Woodcote Park. [4] Its ownership in the family passed down to the heirs of the 6th Baron. [5] [4] His latter-day home in London itself was on Russell Square:
the handsome mansion on the south-east side of the square, at the corner of Guilford Street, was built, in 1759, for the eccentric and profligate Lord Baltimore ... it was at first called Baltimore House. Hither his lordship decoyed a young milliner, Sarah Woodcock, and was prosecuted for having caused her ruin, but acquitted. He died in 1771 at Naples, whence his remains were brought to London, and lay in state, as we have mentioned, at Exeter Change ... The house was subsequently occupied by the equally eccentric Duke of Bolton.
— E. Walford, Old and New London, Vol. 4, 1878 [6]
The Lords Baltimore had notable early siblings and descendants: 17th century
18th century
Early 19th century
Mid 19th century
There are many locations in Maryland named after the Barons Baltimore ("Lords Baltimore"), including Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Calvert County, Cecil County, Charles County, Frederick County, Leonardtown, St. Leonard, and Calvert Cliffs. There are also Charles Street and Calvert Street in Baltimore.
The wife of The 2nd Baron Baltimore, Anne Arundell's namesake Queen survives in that of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. His name survives also in that of Cecil County, Maryland, Cecil Avenue, Cecil Elementary School and Calvert Street in Baltimore, along with another Calvert Street (alley) in Brooklyn (a South Baltimore city neighbourhood bordering suburban Anne Arundel County) and Calvert Street in Washington, D.C.
Harford County is named for Henry Harford (1758/1760–1835), the illegitimate son of Frederick, 6th and last Baron Baltimore (1731–1771). Leonardtown, Maryland, now county seat of St. Mary's, is named for the younger brother of the Cecil, 2nd Lord Baltimore, the 28-year-old Leonard Calvert (1606–1647), who arrived in the Colonial settling expedition of 1634 and set up the provincial government in the new capital of St. Mary's City.
The main downtown street in Cumberland, Maryland, is named Baltimore Street, along with Baltimore Avenue, the main north–south highway of commercial business along the Atlantic coast to the resort town of Ocean City. The Baltimore Road, which runs through the town of Bladensburg was made famous due to its role in the Battle of Bladensburg and the subsequent "Burning of Washington" during the War of 1812.
On the Avalon Peninsula in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador of the northeastern Dominion of Canada, there is a settlement named Calvert, and in nearby Ferryland there is a "Baltimore School". There are also several other towns and villages across North America in the several states with the name of "Baltimore", "New Baltimore" or "Old Baltimore".
A life-sized bronze statue on a granite pedestal of Cecil, 2nd Lord Baltimore (1605–1675), is located on the steps of the western end at the St. Paul Street entrance of the Baltimore City Circuit Court House, the third courts structure on the nearby colonial-era Courthouse Square site (located to the east along North Calvert Street), constructed 1896–1900 (now renamed the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse since 1985 for a noted local and Civil Rights Movement leader, Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. [1911–1984], known as "The 101st Senator") in Baltimore, Maryland. The statue of Cecil, Lord Baltimore, sponsored by the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Maryland, was dedicated November 21, 1908, and now faces a fountain and tree-shaded small plaza/park across the street, developed/laid out in 1964, between East Fayette and East Lexington Streets.
Before the American Revolution, a common flag used by military units of the colonial militia of the Province of Maryland was known as the Calvert Arms Flag. This flag had the original Union Jack from the Acts of Union 1707 as a canton in the upper corner, with a St. George's Cross and a St. Andrew's Cross to represent the patron saint of England and Scotland, respectively.
This Union Jack canton is in the upper corner of the banner over the black and gold (yellow) chevrons depicted on the Calvert family's shield and coats-of-arms. Today, this historical colonial/provincial flag is often displayed throughout the state, especially at historical, heritage and festival events such as for the French and Indian War era, (1754–1763) at colonial Fort Frederick in Washington County in the mountainous western panhandle of the state.
The modern flag of the State of Maryland still bears the Calvert-Crossland family / Lord Baltimore coats-of-arms and shield, and has been used since the 1880s with the four quarters reunited after the tragic splits in the border states of the American Civil War, with the Northern Union Army regiments using the black and gold chevrons and the Southern Confederate States Army units using the red/white trefoil cross botonee.
Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore was an English politician, peer and lawyer who was the first proprietor of Maryland. Born in Kent in 1605, he inherited the proprietorship after the death of his father, George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, for whom it had been intended. Calvert proceeded to establish and manage the Province of Maryland as a proprietary colony for English Catholics from his English country house of Kiplin Hall in North Yorkshire.
Lord Baltimore may refer to:
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1634 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S. state of Maryland. Its first settlement and capital was St. Mary's City, in the southern end of St. Mary's County, which is a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay and is also bordered by four tidal rivers.
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore was an English peer and politician. He achieved domestic political success as a member of parliament and later Secretary of State under King James I. He lost much of his political power after his support for a failed marriage alliance between Prince Charles and the Spanish House of Habsburg royal family. Rather than continue in politics, he resigned all of his political offices in 1625 except for his position on the Privy Council and declared his Catholicism publicly. He was created Baron Baltimore in the Peerage of Ireland upon his resignation. Baltimore Manor was located in County Longford, Ireland.
Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, inherited the colony of Maryland in 1675 upon the death of his father, Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, (1605–1675). He had been his father's Deputy Governor since 1661 when he arrived in the colony at the age of 24. However, Charles left Maryland for England in 1684 and would never return. The events following the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 would cost Calvert his title to Maryland; in 1689 the royal charter to the colony was withdrawn, leading to direct rule by the British Crown. Calvert's political problems were largely caused by his Roman Catholic faith which was at odds with the established Church of England.
Benedict Leonard Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore was an English peer and politician. He was the second son of Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore (1637–1715) by Jane Lowe, and became his father's heir upon the death of his elder brother Cecil in 1681. The 3rd Lord Baltimore was a devout Roman Catholic, and had lost his title to the Province of Maryland shortly after the events of the Glorious Revolution in 1688, when the Protestant monarchs William III and Mary II acceded to the British throne. Benedict Calvert made strenuous attempts to have his family's title to Maryland restored by renouncing Roman Catholicism and joining the Church of England.
Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, 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.
Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, styled The Hon. Frederick Calvert until 1751, was an English nobleman and last in line of the Barons Baltimore. Although he exercised almost feudal power in the Province of Maryland, he never once set foot in the colony, and unlike his father, he took little interest in politics, treating his estates, including Maryland, largely as sources of revenue to support his extravagant, often scandalous lifestyle. In 1768 he was accused of abduction and rape by Sarah Woodcock, a noted beauty who kept a milliner's shop at Tower Hill. The jury acquitted Calvert, but he left England soon afterwards, and never recovered from the public scandal that surrounded the trial. Dogged by the criticism and poor health, he contracted a fever and died in Naples at the age of 40.
Leonard Calvert was the first proprietary governor of the Province of Maryland. He was the second son of The 1st Baron Baltimore (1579–1632), the first proprietor of Maryland. His elder brother Cecil (1605–1675), who inherited the colony and the title upon the death of their father George, April 15, 1632, appointed Leonard as governor of the Colony in his absence.
Elihu Emory Jackson, a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 41st Governor of Maryland in the United States from 1888 to 1892. He was born in 1837 in Delmar, Maryland and died in 1907 in the City of Baltimore, Maryland. He is buried at the Parsons Cemetery in Salisbury, Maryland, the county seat of Wicomico County. He was part owner of Pemberton Hall, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
Caroline Eden was the daughter of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, and sister of Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore. She married Sir Robert Eden, the last colonial Governor of Maryland, and was the mother of Sir Frederick Eden, 2nd Baronet.
Anne Calvert, Baroness Baltimore was an English noblewoman, the daughter of Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour by his second wife Anne Philipson, and wife of Lord Baltimore, who founded the Province of Maryland colony. Anne Arundel County in the US state of Maryland was named for her. In addition, U.S. Navy ship USS Anne Arundel (AP-76), an Elizabeth C. Stanton-class transport was in turn named after the county, serving from 1940 to 1970.
Henry Harford, 5th Proprietor of Maryland, was the last proprietary owner of the British colony of Maryland. He was born in 1758; the eldest — but illegitimate — son of Frederick Calvert 6th Baron Baltimore and his mistress Mrs. Hester Whelan. Harford inherited his father's estates in 1771, at the age of thirteen, but by 1776, events in America had overtaken his proprietary authority and he would soon lose all his wealth and power in the New World, though remaining wealthy thanks to his estates in England.
Hon. Phillip Calvert, also known as Hon. Philip Calvert, was the fifth Governor of Maryland during a brief period in 1660 or 1661. He was appointed by the royally chartered proprietor of Maryland, Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore (1637–1715), as a caretaker to replace Lt. Gen Josias Fendall (1628–1682), the fifth/sixth? provincial governor.
Benedict Leonard Calvert was the 15th Proprietary Governor of Maryland from 1727 through 1731, appointed by his older brother, Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore (1699–1751). He was named after his father, Benedict Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore (1679–1715). Calvert had tuberculosis and died from it on board the family ship, The Charles, on 1 June 1732, while returning to his home in England, aged 31.
Charlotte Lee, Lady Baltimore (23 March 1678, – 1 February 1721,, was an English noblewoman, and granddaughter of King Charles II of England and his mistress Barbara Villiers. She married in 1699, Benedict Leonard Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore, from whom she separated in 1705; she later married Christopher Crowe. She was the mother of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, and of Benedict Leonard Calvert, who was Governor of Maryland from 1727 to 1731.
Benedict Swingate Calvert was a planter, politician and a Loyalist in Maryland during the American Revolution. He was the son of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, the third Proprietor Governor of Maryland (1699–1751). His mother's identity is not known, though one source speculates that she was Melusina von der Schulenburg, Countess of Walsingham. As he was illegitimate, he was not able to inherit his father's title or estates, which passed instead to his half brother Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore (1731–1771). Benedict Calvert spent most of his life as a politician, judge and planter in Maryland, though Frederick, by contrast, never visited the colony. Calvert became wealthy through proprietarial patronage and became an important colonial official, but he would lose his offices and his political power, though not his land and wealth, during the American Revolution.
Captain Charles Calvert was the 14th Proprietary Governor of Maryland in 1720, at a time when the Calvert family had recently regained control of their proprietary colony. He was appointed governor by his cousin Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, who in 1721 came into his inheritance. Calvert worked to reassert the Proprietary interest against the privileges of the colonists as set out in the Maryland Charter, and to ease tensions between the Lords Baltimore and their subjects. Religious tension, which had been a source of great division in the colony, was much reduced under his governorship. Captain Calvert was replaced as governor in 1727 by his cousin Benedict Leonard Calvert, though he continued to occupy other colonial offices. He suffered from early senility and died in 1734.
Elizabeth Calvert was the daughter of Maryland Governor Captain Charles Calvert and Rebecca Gerard, and a wealthy heiress in colonial Maryland. Her parents died when she was young, leaving her their substantial fortune. In 1748, aged 17, she married her cousin Benedict Swingate Calvert, a Loyalist politician and planter and the illegitimate son of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore. Benedict's connections to the ruling Calvert family allowed him to benefit from considerable proprietarial patronage, until the American Revolution saw the overthrow of British rule and the end of Calvert power in Maryland. Benedict and Elizabeth had to pay triple taxes after the war's end but, unlike many loyalists, their lands and fortune remained unconfiscated.