1644-56] Maryland and the Commonwealth. 33 In 1644 the colony became entangled in the Civil War. Calvert and Ingle, an ally of Clayborne, had each received letters of marque, the former from the King, the latter from the Parliament. Ingle and Clayborne then made a successful raid into Maryland, seizing the chief settlement, St Mary's, and putting Calvert to flight. They failed however to hold what they had acquired. A year later Calvert died. Baltimore showed the flexibility of his principles by appointing as his successor one William Stone, a Protestant. He had shown the same eclectic temper by admitting as colonists those congregations of Nonconformists who had been banished from Virginia. The new-comers do not seem to have felt any special gratitude to Baltimore for his tolerance, and were prepared to make common cause against him with the inhabitants of the Isle of Kent and other disaffected persons. It seemed at first as if the authority of Parliament and of the Protectorate would be accepted in Maryland as quietly as in the other colonies. In 1652 Stone and apparently all the settlers acknowledged the authority of the parliamentary commissioners. The commissioners did not formally revoke Baltimore's patent; but they may be said to have done so implicitly by deciding that writs should run not in his name, but in that of the authority appointed by Parliament, the keepers of the liberties of England. For two years after this the commissioners remained practically the supreme authority. But in 1654 the Proprietor took advantage of the establishment of the Protectorate to reassert his rights. His contention was that the authority of the commissioners had lapsed, and that he, Baltimore, stood in exactly the same position towards the Protectorate as previously towards the Crown. The commissioners at once met this by a fresh assertion of authority. Having disfranchised all Roman Catholics and so secured a compliant assembly, they declared that settlers might occupy land without making any declaration of loyalty to the Proprietor. Baltimore's party at once resisted what would virtually involve the over- throw of his territorial proprietorship. Stone took up arms against the commissioners, but was defeated and taken prisoner. What Baltimore failed to do by force he effected, however, by diplomacy. In 1656 he petitioned the Protector for the restoration of his authority. At the same time a claim was being made on behalf of Virginia, asserting the rights of that colony over the territory of Maryland. The result was a compromise whereby Baltimore's proprietary rights were restored in full and the claims of Virginia abandoned, while in return Baltimore granted an indemnity to those who had opposed him. Two years later a somewhat obscure dispute broke out. The Assembly claimed to have full legislative rights and to be independent of all authority save that of the Crown. They were countenanced in this, if not instigated to it, by the governor, Josias Fendall, who in the previous disputes had acted as a partisan of Baltimore. The time C. M. H. VII. Oil. I.
