xiv                  Kent County.

        in the local county records membership on the court can be learned from the
        Proceedings of the Governor's Council and of the Provincial Court. Thus the
        two gaps in the Kent record, from 1662-1666 and 1672-1675, are in great part
        supplied by the names contained in the commissions for justices of Kent issued
        by the Governor in 1664 and 1674, recorded in the Council proceedings (Arch.
        Md. iii, 512; xv, 42). The appeals from the Kent County Court to the Pro-
        vincial Court, during the period covered by these two breaks just mentioned,
        recorded in the Proceedings of the latter court, also give us a record not only
        of the judicial features of the cases heard below, but these appeals sometimes
        mention the names of the justices who had heard the case in the lower court.
          George Evelyn, Robert Philpot William Brainthwaite, Giles Brent, and John
        Wyatt, the first five, commanders of Kent, were provincial rather than local
        Kent Island figures, and are too well known to students of Maryland history to
        require further notice here.
          Robert Vaughan ( -1668), the sixth Commander of Kent, was appointed
        to this position in 1648, although he was first placed on the Kent Court as a
        justice in 1642, and was presiding justice at the time of his death in 1668. He
        deserves special mention. He may have come over on the Ark or the Dove,
        as he was a witness at St. Mary's to the will of young George Calvert, son
        of the first Lord Baltimore, a document dated July io, 1634, a little more than
        three months after the settlement (Md. Hist. Mag. i, 364). At first a resident
        of St. Mary's, he moved to Kent Island in 1641 or 1642, and spent the re-
        mainder of his life there. He took an active part in the subjection of Kent
        Island in 1638 (Arch. Md. iii, 76, 77, passim), and was a staunch adherent
        of the Proprietary in the controversy with Claiborne, at the time of the Ingle
        rebellion and during the Commonwealth period (Arch. Md. iii, 216, 217).
        When he was made Commander of Kent in 1648, his “fidelity, courage, wis-
        dom, industry and integrity” in helping to suppress the rebellion of “that
        Notorious and ungrateful villain, Richard Ingle, and his complices “, were
        cited and seem to have played great part in his selection (Arch. Md. iii, 216).
        He remained Commander until the affairs of Kent were taken over by the
        Commissioners of the Parliament, when he was removed from office, the Kent
        records disclosing that he created a scene in court at that time by bending his
        fist over the heads of the judges and swearing at the clerk (p. 9), which was
        unquestionably an outburst of political temper, and one for which he later
        apologized (pp. 15-16; Arch. Md. iii, 276-277). With the restoration of the
        Province to Cecilius Calvert he was appointed, May 26, 1658, by Governor
        Fendall as presiding justice (Arch. Md. xli, 89), and retained this position
        until his death at the close of the year 1668. The Kent records during the
        Fendall rebellion in 1660 are missing, but it is certain that Vaughan stood by
        the Proprietary. He was a man of considerable importance in the Province
        and in addition to his judicial career in Kent, held numerous other offices. He
        was a member of the Council of Maryland from 1648 to 1650, and a justice
        of the Provincial Court, 1649. He served as a burgess in the Assembly from
        St. George's Hundred, 1637-1638, from St. Clement's Hundred, 1640-1641,
        and from the Isle of Kent, 1642-1652. He also had a military record, appear-