Conflict for Lord Baltimore
Newfoundland Cold and Virginia Hostility
George Calvert, the first Lord of Baltimore, visits Newfoundland then visits Jamestown, Virginia. He tangles with the secretary of the Virginia council William Claiborne.
Jamestown Wasn't Big Enough For the Both of Them.
The summer of 1627 that George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, had spent in Newfoundland had proven to be an extremely unhealthy adventure. As Calvert related to King Charles, in 1629, from about the middle of October to midway into May the air in Newfoundland was "so intolerable cold as it is hardly to be endured."
Of the one hundred people living in Calvert's Newfoundland province that summer of 1627, fifty were ill. Not desiring to take any chances with the health of his family, Lord Baltimore sent his wife and children south to Virginia .
After declaring the whole of Newfoundland should be committed to fishermen, Calvert followed his family southward.
In Virginia, in spite of the more congenial weather, not all was well, as Lord Baltimore discovered upon his October arrival.
Illustrating that news was exceedingly slow in traveling in those early years, Calvert was informed that the charter of the Virginia Company had been revoked four years earlier, in 1623. The fine folks of Virginia were awaiting the arrival of a new governor who was being sent from England.
In spite of the warmer climate Lord Baltimore found the personal climate towards himself quite chilly. None of the Virginia settlers were in much of a warm mood to be cordial to someone who was obviously searching out a new dominion to rule over, as Calvert certainly was.
One Virginian that Lord Baltimore met, William Claiborne who was the secretary of the provisional council, would be a lasting source of trouble for Calvert and the future Lord Baltimores. Claiborne held trading rights in Chesapeake Bay, an interest that certain turns of the future would bring considerable unrest.
The first trouble came when the council decreed that if Lord Baltimore was going to stay in Virginia he had to take the oath of allegiance. Baltimore was willing, even though doing so was unnecessary for a man who had been a Secretary of State in England. But the council was yet to be through with their demands.
The Lords Baltimore continued: part 4.
Lord Baltimore Swears Not to take an Oath.
Trouble begins when Lord Baltimore is told by the Virginia council that to be allowed to stay he must take an oath of supremacy.
