looked back, to the establishment of a Catholic eccle-
siastical state, we may never know. It is possible that he
helped to plan the social experiment that in fact was at-
tempted in Maryland. If so, this part of his vision was
far ahead of its time.

The Charter Implemented: Cecil Calvert's Political Skills

   George Calvert died on April 15, 1632, before the
charter he had written had finished its passage through
the royal bureaucracy. In fact, he died before the final
boundaries of his colony had been established. It fell to
his eldest son, Cecil, age 26, to procure the final grant
and guide the colony into being.¹⁵

   Before George Calvert died he had agreed that his
grant should be moved from the area south of the James
River to the northern Chesapeake, where the crown
wished to forestall Dutch claims. The grant was to be
for all the lands between the Potomac and Delaware
rivers, with a poorly defined western boundary. The
privy council warrant that ordered the attorney general
to draft a new charter declared that this new territory
"shall be called Mariland in memory and honor of the
Queene," Henrietta Maria. A draft charter based on
this warrant started its way through the royal seals, but
the first Lord Baltimore's death intervened.

   On April 21, 1632, Cecil Calvert, now the second
Lord Baltimore, obtained a new warrant and charter
draft, which in turn began passage through the royal
bureaucracy. At this point persons representing Virginia
interests, hoping to prevent entirely a grant which took
up lands that once had been part of the Virginia Com-
pany patent, objected. The supporters of Virginia ar-
gued that their colonists had already settled the lower

                      [xviii]