xiv Notes.

but that he put forward pretensions of some sort is plain from the fol-
lowing extract from a letter of Charles Calvert to his father Cecilius,
dated April 26, 1672 :

" Major Fitzherbert's brother, who maryed the Indian Brent, has
civilly parted with her, and (as I suppose) will never care to bed with
her more; soe that your Lordship needs not to feare any ill conse-
quences from that match, butt what has already happened to the poore
man, who unadvisedly threw himself away upon her in hopes of a great
portion which has come to little."

As Mary was seven years old in 1640, she must have been thirty-nine
in 1672. The "ill consequences" which might have been apprehended
from that match, but which were averted by the separation, were clearly
the birth of an heir in lawful wedlock, who might put forward claims
in his mother's right.

This is the last we hear of Mary Brent Kittomaquund. But this
matter of her claims crops up in a rather surprising way in August,
1676, as appears in the text.

In the Preface mention has been made of the massacre of the chiefs
at the Susquehannough fort, and of the southern march of the garrison
through Virginia, plundering and murdering, out of which grew Bacon's
rebellion. There was certainly some sympathy felt for Bacon in Mary-
land; and the Council seems to have had an idea that he had designs
upon Maryland, in which case he might use this half-breed youth to
draw the Indians to his side. Probably Bacon never entertained any
such wild notions; but in any case his hands were too full in Virginia
to give him an opportunity to make the attempt.

Who then was this Giles Brent, who is clearly the son of Mary ? As
he is spoken of in 1676 as a person who in designing hands might
become a dangerous leader of sedition, he could hardly have been less
than twenty years old, which would put his birth in or before 1656,
when Mary was twenty-three years old or less; and at the time when
she parted from her lawful husband, Fitzherbert, he must have been at
least sixteen years old. The facts of his taking his mother's name of
Brent; that Governor Calvert is so evidently relieved at the prospect that
no children will be born of the Fitzherbert marriage; and the absence
of all allusion to this youth, seem conclusive that Giles was born out of
wedlock before—and probably long before—the Fitzherbert marriage.
As a bastard he could have no claims either to land or to dignities.
With this passing notice he disappears from history.

Page 127, line 43. The Clifts. In Calvert County, on the Bay
shore.