George Calvert Becomes the First Lord Baltimore
George Calvert's interest in the New World extended, in 1609, to becoming a member of the Virginia Company. Later, he served on the provisional council for the management of the Virginia colony where Jamestown, Virginia
was located.
In 1622, Calvert was a councilor of the New England Company. By this time he was also into the second year of being an absentee landlord of a plantation, not in Britain or Ireland, but on an island called Newfoundland. His plantation there he called Avalon, but up to this date he had not ventured personally to the New World.
That Calvert still served his king well was shown in 1623 when King James rewarded him with a patent, which made him and his heirs the sole proprietors of the entire southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland.
By 1625, five years after the Mayflower had landed the pilgrims at Plymouth in Massachusetts, certain political pressures convinced Calvert that it was time to leave public office. In January of that year, when he was commissioned to try seditious persons who refused to attend Church of England services or to recognize its authority, his decision was made. Calvert pledged alliance with the Roman Catholic Church and resigned.
The king accepted Calvert's resignation but still retained him in his Privy Council. A month later, George Calvert received his title as Lord Baltimore.
When, in 1625, King James died the new king, Charles I, asked Calvert to continue as a member of the Privy Council. King Charles would even allow Calvert, now referred to as Lord Baltimore, to decline from taking the oath of supremacy, an oath that acknowledged the king as leader of the church as well as supreme political leader, if he would remain, but Calvert declined. His involvement in his affairs of the New World, as well as the change of kings, had strengthened his resolve to withdraw from public life.
Upon this decision and the present situation George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, in 1627, undertook his first journey to Newfoundland.
The Lords Baltimore continued: part 3.
Jamestown Wasn't Big Enough For the Both of Them.
George Calvert, the first Lord of Baltimore, visits Newfoundland then visits Jamestown, Virginia. He tangles with the secretary of the Virginia council, William Claiborne, who holds trading rights in Chesapeake Bay.
