Artist: Sir Godfrey Kneller, date unknown
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection of the Enoch Pratt Free Library

Charles Calvert, Third Lord Baltimore, was the first of the proprietors to reside in Maryland. Born in England in 1637, he voyaged to Maryland in 1661 at age 24 with his first wife Mary Darnall who died in childbirth sometime prior to 1666. He then married Jane Lowe Sewall, widow of his friend Henry Sewall. Through this marriage, Calvert significantly increased his kinship ties to include his Sewall stepchildren. Jane bore his sons including, Cecilius Calvert, the child depicted in the portrait of his father, the Second Lord Baltimore. It was presumed that he would be the heir apparent but, upon his death around 1681, the title passed to his younger brother Benedict Leonard Calvert.

Charles Calvert continued his father’s policy of religious toleration and continued his family’s Catholic faith. He struggled with William Penn over the northern boundary of Maryland leading to his return to England in 1684. In 1689, Protestant Maryland colonist, John Coode, led a rebellion that removed Lord Baltimore from power. Coode was briefly governor of Maryland as the first leader of the Protestant Associators who outlawed Catholicism. Charles Calvert died in England in 1715 having lost the Charter of Maryland to the new royal government.