Maryland Charter Lord Baltimore, as Cecil now was, received a Charter from
King Charles I for the new colony of
Maryland, to be named for the
Queen Consort,
Henrietta Maria (wife of King Charles I). This was shortly after the death, in April 1632, of his father, George who had long sought the charter to found a colony in the mid-Atlantic area to serve as a refuge for English Roman Catholics. The original grant would have included the western shore of the
Chesapeake Bay as far south as the
Potomac River and the entirety of the eastern shore (later known as the
Delmarva peninsula). When
the Crown realised that settlers from
Virginia had already crossed the bay to begin settling the southern tip of their eastern shore, the grant was revised to include the eastern shore only as far south as a line drawn east from the mouth of the
Potomac River (including the future State of
Delaware). Once that alteration was made, the final charter was confirmed on 20 June 1632. This charter would be heavily contested by the 2nd Lord Baltimore's heirs and the Penn family in the
Penn–Calvert Boundary Dispute. Baltimore's fee for the Charter, which was legally a rental of the land from the King, was one-fifth of all gold and silver found and the delivery of two Native American arrows to the royal castle at
Windsor every Easter. The Charter established Maryland as a
palatinate, giving Baltimore and his descendants rights nearly equal to those of an independent state, including the rights to wage war, collect taxes and establish a colonial
nobility. In questions of interpretation of rights, the Charter would be interpreted in favour of the proprietor. 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, Baltimore stayed behind in England to deal with the political threat and sent his next younger brother
Leonard in his stead. He never travelled to Maryland. They had informally tried to thwart the founding of another colony for years, but their first formal complaint was lodged with the "
Lords of Foreign Plantations" (Lords of Trade and Plantations) in July 1633.
Ark and Dove '', one of the two ships that carried settlers to plant Lord Baltimore's first settlement in Maryland in 1634. The first expedition consisted of two ships that had formerly belonged to Baltimore's father George,
Ark and
Dove. Both ships departed from
Gravesend, Kent with 128 settlers on board, but were intercepted and forced to return to port by the
Royal Navy so that the settlers would take an oath of allegiance to the King as required by law. They then sailed to the
Isle of Wight in October 1632 to pick up more settlers. Baltimore sent detailed instructions for the governance of the colony. He directed his brother to seek information about those who had tried to thwart the colony and to contact William Claiborne to determine his intentions for the trading station on
Kent Island. He also emphasised the importance of religious toleration among the colonists, who numbered nearly equally Catholic and Protestant. From England, Baltimore tried to manage the political relations with the Crown and other parts of government. Claiborne, the trader on Kent Island, resisted the new settlement and conducted some naval skirmishes against it. Calvert attempted to stay closely involved in the governance of the colony, though he never visited it. During his long tenure, he governed through deputies: the first was his younger brother
Leonard Calvert (1606–1647), and the last was his only son
Charles. ==Crisis before and during the English Civil War==