Introduction.          xxxvii

     which Bateman's part of Resurrection Manor was valued at 65,000 pounds
     of tobacco (£431—5-—0) (Arch. Md. XLIX, 362, 367). The executrix, for
     whose benefit the suit by her mother on the bond had been instituted, promptly
     confessed judgment, and the court ordered a writ of execution to be issued
     against the estate for $2ooo, the amount of the bond (Arch. Md. XLIX, 291-
     294). Up to this point all seemed to be going well for the plaintiff and her
     daughter, as this put them in the position of preferred creditors against the
     estate. But a new contestant was now to enter the scene.
      Henry Scarburgh (Scarborough) of London, merchant, and later of North
     Waltham, Norfolk, presented a petition to Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, which
     the latter referred to his Maryland court, in which it was alleged that John
     Bateman, who died leaving a considerable estate, was indebted to him for
     great sums of money, but that his widow and executrix, Mary Bateman, had
     had the estate undervalued in order to effect the forfeiture of the £2000 bond
     and thus defraud him and the other creditors of the estate. He prayed that
     the court order a new appraisal, and this was accordingly done on January 14,
     1664/5, and three auditors were appointed to bring in a re-appraisal and a state-
     ment of the assets and liabilities of the estate (Arch. Md. XLIX, 352-354, 363).
     This account dated April 5, 1666, showed a very slight increase in the appraisal,
     with real and personal property now valued at 142,606 pounds of tobacco, and
     debts of 174,140 paid by the executrix, and indicated overpayments by Mary
     of 31,534 pounds of tobacco (pp. 45-54). As an inventory of the possessions
     of a well-to-do planter of the period it is in itself of considerable interest.
      Ignoring Scarburgh's charges of fraud, the court on April 5, 1666, accepted
     the widow's account, and ordered that a quietus est be issued to prevent her
     further annoyance in the settlement of the estate (p. 54). This court order
     was followed the next day by a proclamation by Governor Charles Calvert
     that should anyone thereafter seek to bring suit against Mary in any court that
     the quietus est be a “sufficient plea in Barre” to such suit (p. 106).

      This quietus est would seem to have put the widow in an impregnable posi-
     tion, but it was not so to be, for Scarburgh appealed directly to Cecilius
     Calvert, the Lord Proprietary, in England. On June 9th, 1668, lengthy
     instructions, legal opinions, and orders were received in Maryland from Cecilius
     Calvert, completely upsetting the actions of the Provincial Court. These were
     addressed to Governor Charles Calvert, Chancellor Philip Calvert, and the
     Council and Judges of the Provincial Court, and cover seven pages of this
     printed record. The instructions from Cecilius Calvert did not direct a rehearing
     in the Provincial Court, or an appeal to the Upper House, or an appeal
     to the Privy Council in England, but were in the form of a direct judicial
     order from the Lord Proprietary.
      Scarburgh had submitted a petition to Cecilius, praying redress, together
     with copies of all the proceedings in the Maryland courts relating to the Bate-
     man estate. These had then been referred by the Proprietary for a legal
     opinion to “Richard Langhorne of the Inner Temple London Esq. his Lopps
     Councell learned in the Law”. The petition, Langhorne's opinion, and the
     Proprietary's order in the case, are also all entered in this record (pp. 335-342).