Common Whores, Vertuous Women, and Loveing Wives: Free Will Christian Women in Colonial Maryland
264
Common Whores, Vertuous Women, and Loveing Wives: Free Will Christian Women in Colonial Maryland
264Hardcover
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253341938 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/31/2003 |
| Series: | Religion in North America , #31 |
| Pages: | 264 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Common Whores, Vertuous Women, and Loveing Wives
Free Will Christian Women in Colonial Maryland
By Debra Meyers
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2003 Debra MeyersAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-34193-8
CHAPTER 1
Maryland's Raison d'être
For the past two hundred years colonial Maryland historians have agreed on one thing — George Calvert was the man responsible for the establishment of the modern religiously tolerant state of Maryland. He was the son of a Yorkshire gentleman, and by all accounts a successful English officeholder. Calvert's statesmanship, honesty, and integrity gained him the respect of Sir Robert Cecil, who served both Queen Elizabeth and James I as principal secretary of state, and James as Lord High Treasurer as well. Calvert's acceptance of the position of chief clerk in Cecil's service formed the foundation of a long and fruitful relationship between the two men. In an indication of this bond, George named his heir apparent after Cecil and Cecil procured the prominent position of privy council clerk for George. In 1617 King James knighted George Calvert, and upon the dismissal of Sir Thomas Lake he appointed Calvert one of the secretaries of state, the most lucrative and prestigious post Calvert could hold under the king. James I also bestowed other profitable rewards upon George, such as the 1620 grant of the increased customs on silk for twenty-one years, and an annual pension of a thousand pounds sterling. Even after George publicly declared his Roman Catholic faith, the king granted him the title Lord Baltimore.
While celebrating Calvert's integrity and the self-discipline that made him the statesman, gentleman, and founding father they generally admired, historians differed somewhat on why we should honor George as a great man. Some chose to focus on his pious, altruistic Catholicism that drove him to embrace religious tolerance — values he inculcated in his son, Cecil, who put them into practice in the New World — with little or no regard for his own aggrandizement. Others paid tribute to George's foresight in establishing a province in the New World, but they welcomed the Protestant ideals of toleration and democracy that came from the majority of Anglican settlers once the province was established. Still others, more recently, applauded Calvert's pragmatism. A man before his time, Calvert made decisions about colonization and settlement based on his own self-interest that allowed a modern state to evolve founded upon the fundamental idea of the separation of church and state. John Krugler said it best when he claimed that a true understanding of the Calvert family's insistence upon religious toleration in Maryland must rest firmly on the fact that the Calverts were "hardnosed pragmatic Catholic entrepreneurs who were attempting to prosper in a world that was predominately [sic] Protestant." In sum, the practical Calverts, as modern Catholics moving toward secularization, expediently seized the political and economic advantages that lay before them, intent upon carving out a significant place for themselves in the modern Protestant world.
None of these characterizations fully capture George Calvert's position in straddling two worlds. Calvert was on the cusp of the "traditional" and modern worlds and his life reflected this tension, as did his son's. He accepted that property, innovation, education, and risk taking, in addition to religious toleration and rational scientific thought, were central to accumulating wealth, and this attitude is often taken to be a hallmark of a modern worldview. Calvert was always interested in increasing the family's wealth by accumulating property, and he and his kin encouraged education as a means to this end. He obtained his bachelor's degree at Trinity College in 1597 and an honorary Master of Arts degree in 1605. Calvert was willing to take substantial financial risks as he invested his wealth in many transatlantic opportunities — innovative means for his time. He was one of the original associates of the Virginia Company, and also served as a provisional council member in England for the temporary government of Virginia in 1624 in order to protect his assets. He also invested capital in the East India and New England Companies, in addition to purchasing a plantation in Newfoundland. His dedication to wealth accumulation, innovation, financial risk taking, education, and the establishment of a religiously tolerant society — carried out by his son — seems to firmly place him in the secularized modern world. And yet his vision for an ordered society in the New World was based upon feudalism — including a traditional land-tenure system. If we are willing to keep in mind Calvert's position, with one foot in the traditional world and the other in the modern, his motivation for settlement in the New World becomes clearer.
Calvert's ties to the Crown, and the wealth and status that they provided, opened the door for his personal adventures in the New World. In 1620 Calvert purchased a patent for a small plantation on the southern tip of Newfoundland from one of his old Oxford chums, Sir William Vaughan. As quickly as he could, Calvert sent Captain Edward Wynne to his new colony in Ferryland with approximately thirty-two laborers to build granaries, storehouses, and a relatively modest residence for the Calvert clan. With a successful province within his grasp, Calvert requested a patent from the king the following year. The unusual patent gave him royal power over the whole southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland, newly christened Avalon. "Avalon" sheds some light on Calvert's future plans and suggests a reason for packing his family up and moving to the New World. He selected the name carefully, just as he had when he named his heir apparent after his mentor and benefactor, Sir Robert Cecil. Calvert's Avalon shared its name with the ancient monastic lands in what is now Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, England. Joseph of Arimathea — honored as the first man to bring the Christian faith to England — established an abbey in ancient Avalon to foster the growth of Christianity in the heathen land. In Calvert's mind, then, the new Avalon must have represented an opportunity in the post-Reformation era to reestablish Roman Catholicism as the true English faith. Not a man to rule by the sword, Calvert would subtly attempt to bring misguided Anglicans back to the fold and strengthen the piety of English Roman Catholics by offering a place to worship in public.
English Roman Catholic literature throughout the Tudor/Stuart period urged Catholics to guide the Anglican lost sheep back into the flock. Taking this directive seriously, George Calvert assisted Sir Tobie Matthew, a childhood friend, in his conversion to the "holie Catholic fayth." Matthew shared George's belief that he could remain a loyal subject of the Crown while also pledging his allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church. English Catholics published an autobiographical account of Matthew's conversion experience to offer misguided Anglicans a model for returning to the true faith. They chose to exploit Tobie Matthew's experience over others because he was the son of the Anglican bishop of Durham. The message was clear; if the son of a high-ranking Anglican cleric could rediscover the true faith, so could other Anglicans. George's larger mission, then, was to provide fertile soil in the New World in which to plant the seeds for the rebirth of English souls far away from anti-Catholic governmental intrusion. There is evidence to suggest that colonists also took it upon themselves to participate in Calvert's endeavor. Calvert's desire to return Anglicans to Catholicism was shared by Jesuits and laymen in the province of Maryland. The Anglican John Grammer testified in court that he had been duped into attending a sermon given by Father Fitzherbert at Mrs. Brooks's house in 1658. The next day Grammer returned to Mrs. Brooks's with his wife, and the Jesuit priest asked him "how he liked his doctrine." Grammer answered that he could accept some of what the priest had said, but certainly not all of it. "Mr. Fitzherbert asked him what he did not like: 8c walked out together where they had a quarter hours discourse."
In order to succeed in establishing a Catholic missionary settlement in the New World, Calvert needed the support of both the Crown and the Catholic church. Although James I took a decidedly anti-Catholic stance in public — particularly after the Bye Plot of 1603 to kidnap him, and the Gunpowder Plot attempt on his life two years later — his desire to secure the match between his son and the Catholic Spanish infanta and his release of imprisoned recusants (Roman Catholics who refused to attend Church of England services) indicate that this stance was not immutable. In fact, his actions concerning Lord Baltimore suggest that he shared the goal of establishing a Catholic colony (if only to place English Catholics thousands of miles from home, or perhaps to please one of his favorites, George Calvert), for Avalon's charter gave Lord Baltimore royal powers over his new province, as stated in the "Bishop of Durham" clause:
And furthermore the Patronages and Advowsons of all Churches which as Christian Religion shall increase within the said Region Isles and Limitts shall happen hereafter to be erected, Together with all and singular the like and as ample Right jurisdictions privileges prerogatives Royaltyes, Liberties, Imunityes and Franchises whatsoever as well by Sea as by Land within the Region, lies and Limitts aforesaid, To have exercise use and enjoy the same, as any Bishop of Durham within the Bishopprick or County Palatine of Durham in our Kingdome of England hath at any time heretofore had, held, used, or enjoyed, or of right ought or might have had, held, used, or enjoyed.
With the blessings of the English Crown and as the de facto prince of Avalon, George Calvert set sail for Newfoundland in 1627 with two Roman Catholic priests, Fathers Longvyll and Smith, and at least forty English Catholic settlers.
Tellingly, Calvert secured consequential marriage ties between his family and that of Sir Thomas Arundell (later dubbed Lord Arundell of Wardour), one of the most influential Roman Catholics in England. Arundell himself had attempted to establish an English Catholic colony in 1605 on the shores of Norumbega (later referred to as New England). Arundell's plan had included sending unemployed English Catholic soldiers — who had fought for Spain before James I agreed to peace in 1604 — to begin the colonization process. These laborers would be under the direction of a select group of English Roman Catholic noblemen. Arundell's plan was thwarted, however, when resistance to the idea swelled at home.
Fully apprised of the pitfalls that lay before him, Calvert brought his family — save his eldest son Cecil — with him on his second trip to Avalon in the spring of 1628 to begin his own attempt at an English Roman Catholic missionary settlement. His arrival caused the Protestant minister, Rev. Erasmus Sturton, to leave Newfoundland in August of 1628. In England Sturton complained to the authorities that the Roman Catholic Mass was publicly celebrated in Avalon, in violation of English common law. His protests did not, however, deter the king from instructing the Lord High Treasurer to lend six ships to Lord Baltimore so that he could defend the English Catholic colony against the French. Yet even with the support of the Crown and his own sizable financial investment in the settlement, Calvert abandoned his mission. The hostile French fishermen and the cold, harsh climate proved formidable barriers between Calvert and his quest. Perhaps keeping in mind the need to convince other English Catholics to settle across the Atlantic in a Catholic haven, he sought to establish his province in a more suitable environment. His gaze turned southward to the warmer climate of Virginia.
Lord Baltimore sent some of his children back to England and set sail for Jamestown during the fall of 1629 to meet up with his second wife (his first wife having died in childbirth in 1622), who had already journeyed to Virginia several months earlier. Calvert, expecting a hearty welcome from the English settlers that he helped govern at one point, faced a rude and insulting populace when he and his Catholic entourage set foot on the soil. Colonial Virginia records reveal that more than one resident was brought to justice for harassing the English Catholics. Thomas Tindall, for instance, threatened to knock George Calvert to the ground and was publicly punished for his insolence with two hours in the pillory in 1630. Further, Governor Pott and his council demanded that Calvert take the oath of supremacy, knowing that pious Roman Catholics could not swear such an oath without being excommunicated in accordance with the papal bull of 1626. After being asked to leave the settlement, Calvert returned to England but left his wife and some of their children in Virginia to follow him at a later date. They never made it back to England; their ship was lost at sea in 1631.
His personal losses led George Calvert to write to Sir Thomas Wentworth, "But all things, my Lord, in this world pass away; statutum est, wife, children, honor, wealth, friends, and what else is dear to flesh and blood; they are but lent us till God please to call for them back again, that we may not esteem anything our own, or set our hearts upon anything but Him alone, who only remains forever." Despite his loss, Calvert continued his pursuit of a Catholic missionary settlement by petitioning James I for a grant of land east of Virginia. Although George Calvert died before he held the charter in his hands, his eldest son Cecil, the second Lord Baltimore, followed in his fathers footsteps when Charles I gave him the charter for Maryland on June 20, 1632. Maryland's charter was based on Avalon's, complete with the Bishop of Durham clause and palatinate status, essentially establishing a hereditary monarchy in Maryland. Thus Charles I also followed his father's lead in his endorsement of a Roman Catholic province where Lord Baltimore would possess powers of near absolute sovereignty. Yet it bears mentioning that Charles I must have been influenced by his Roman Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, the daughter of one of the most outspoken women of her times, Marie de Medicis. Indeed, Maryland is said to have been named for Queen Henrietta Maria, an apt acknowledgment of her part in establishing Maryland as an English Catholic missionary province. Thomas Vane suggested as much in his published treatise, entitled A Lost Sheep Returned Home; or; The Motives of the Conversion to the Catholike Faith, of Thomas Vane, Doctor of Divinity, and lately Chaplaine to His Majesty the King of England (1648). He dedicated this work to his patron "the Most Excellent Majesty of Henriette Marie, Queen of England," who took her duty seriously as "a nursing Mother to the [Roman Catholic] Church" intent on bringing the lost sheep — the English Anglicans — back into the fold.
Others in England saw the value of providing the English Roman Catholics with a safe haven. A pamphlet published in 1646 asked Parliament to be lenient toward the Catholics and allow them "liberty of conscience in England" because they posed no real danger to the state. But "in case the Parliament shall not think fit to do so, they may be pleased to give to so many of them as will accept thereof, free & publick leave to transplant themselves, families, and estates, into Mariland, a Province in America, above 3000 miles distant from England." The author argued that "the more ready way to remove the fears and jealousies which this State hath of the said Roman Catholicks, is not to keepe them here under the heavie burthen of the penall Laws made against them for their Religion; but either to let them enjoy here the rights, and liberties of other free-born subjects; or else to give them leave to go into another countrey, where they may enjoy them." If the government allowed the Roman Catholics to sell their estates and go to Maryland, then there would be no reason for the English Catholics to enlist the aid of the French or Spanish Roman Catholics and seek revenge. Furthermore, by encouraging English Catholics to settle peaceably in Maryland, Parliament would avoid any further international embarrassment. It was far better to let English Catholics go to Maryland than to watch them flee "into any Forein Princes Dominions; because it will not be for the honour, nor perhaps for the safety of England, to permit another Princes Territories to be supplyed with people, by any considerable number of the Natives of this Kingdome." It would also benefit the English Crown, because "the planting of the said Roman Catholicks in Mariland (wch hath a dépendance on the Crown of England) Will conduce much to the honour and profit of this State and Nation, by enlarging the Dominions thereof, by encrease of trade and shipping." This action would certainly form a "strong bond of fidelity" between the English Roman Catholics and "their Native Countrey." In sum, an English Roman Catholic haven in the New World would benefit the entire nation both economically and politically.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Common Whores, Vertuous Women, and Loveing Wives by Debra Meyers. Copyright © 2003 Debra Meyers. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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Table of Contents
Preliminary Table of Contents: AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1.Maryland's Raison d'étre2.Private Lives3.Religion in the New World4.Women and Religion5.Religion, Property, and the Family6.Free Will Christian Women's Public AuthorityConclusionSelected BibliographyIndexWhat People are Saying About This
Meyers . . . offer[s] a provocative new idea for religious history, namely that Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Quakers shared a common set of beliefs that caused them to act in concert on social issues.