Maryland’s Civil War
After taking over Virginia, puritans Richard Bennett and William Claiborne also take control of Maryland. Baltimore orders his governor, William Stone, to fight back. This conflict culminates in a bloody fight near Providence/Anne Arundel, involving nearly 400 Marylanders, known as the Battle of the Severn
Full Text
One could argue that the last battle of the English Civil War didn’t take place along the Severn River in England, but instead on a river by the same name in Maryland.
Introduction
Last episode, we talked about the reduction of England’s Royalist colonies and the foundations of the British Empire, but I said that we would have to cover Maryland in its own episode, because it’s Maryland, and being Maryland, it’s complicated. When the war had been going on, the colony had been unapologetically Royalist, and more apologetically Catholic. Baltimore, himself, had been openly Royalist. And when the king had been executed, Maryland had added its name to the list of those which declared Prince Charles to be King Charles II. But, it was also weak, and full of Puritans. Some of these had been in the colony since its inception, some had been recruited by Baltimore within England, and some had fled from Virginia after being kicked out for their religious and political sympathies. Even before the war, the colony had existed on the edge of a knife, and the war had taken an immeasurably worse toll on Maryland than any of England’s other colonies.
And for all of these reasons, when the Commonwealth started to react to colonial declarations of loyalty to Charles II, Baltimore did everything he could to protect Maryland. He told his leadership in the colony to show their loyalty to the new Commonwealth government, and to make Maryland’s puritans happy, and he did everything he could within England to achieve the same ends. He had a Puritan governor, he invited Edward Gibbons to come down from New England to join the Maryland council, and he declared his intention to do nothing against Parliament, and nothing, not even emergency things, without the consent of the Maryland General Assembly. He even started pushing for more puritanical moral legislation. He replaced the old, controversial Oath of Allegiance with one that was so scaled back it was almost meaningless in most respects. The only thing he stood firm on was religious toleration. He didn’t even require particular loyalty to his government. He only required a commitment to leaving people from other denominations alone, and he argued hard that this was in keeping with the Commonwealth’s own dedication to religious toleration. The only difference was that it would include Catholics, but that dedication to religious toleration had made Maryland a haven for Puritans, who themselves had been kicked out of Virginia.
Baltimore’s arguments were effective enough that Parliament did withdraw Maryland’s name from the Act for Prohibiting Trade with the Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermuda and Antigua. Maryland wasn’t off the hook, but they would decide its fate another day.
And then, to give an effective demonstration of his loyalty, he even ordered Governor Stone to help with the reduction of Virginia to submission to the Commonwealth. Now that did not go over well in Virginia, and prompted Berkeley to start ignoring Maryland’s claim to Palmer’s Island, that valuable and controversial trading location, but all the better to really highlight the difference between loyal Maryland and seditious Virginia. Charles II also expressed his displeasure with Baltimore’s new loyalty to the Commonwealth, but to the same effect. Maybe both colonies had supported the king during the war, but Baltimore and Maryland could still be the most loyal citizens the Commonwealth had to offer, while Virginia Anglicans were uncontrollably committed to the Royalist cause, so much so that they were gathering an army which would require a fleet of Commonwealth ships to cross the Atlantic to stop them.
At stake for Baltimore was not just a reduction in the vein of Barbados or Virginia, which, let’s not understate even that, but the future of the colony and its original inhabitants, largely Catholics, who would be resubjected to intense persecution if he failed. And on the other hand, maybe, possibly, if things went really well, his leadership in Maryland might actually pave the way for toleration of Catholics in Commonwealth England. If they could show the government, which professed its commitment to religious toleration, that Catholics weren’t the grand, seditious, treasonous threat they’d been portrayed as for the past century … maybe that toleration could extend to them. This was the prevailing Catholic strategy in both England and Ireland at this point in time, and Baltimore could conceivably use Maryland to help provide a tangible example of Catholic cooperation.
And obviously, all of this had been effective enough to prevent Maryland from being immediately reduced, which was pretty remarkable. To go from being the most vilified colony to the only one not ordered to be reduced by force was a pretty impressive feat, but there was a problem. This postponement of a decision meant that they also hadn’t explicitly recognized Baltimore’s government. His charter still came from the king, and the Commonwealth hadn’t specifically said that charter still stood. To add to that issue, the instructions for reducing Virginia were worded to include “all plantations within the Bay of Chesapeake” which weren’t submitted to the Commonwealth. And with the combination of these two ambiguities, legally, you could argue, and pretty strongly at that, that until the Commonwealth explicitly recognized Baltimore’s authority, it was null and void, and Parliament was the only legitimate leader of Maryland. And if that was the case, submitting to Baltimore’s authority over that of the Commonwealth was indirectly submitting to the authority of the king over the commonwealth, and that was rebellion. And therefore, reduction was an absolutely legal course of action.
You could of course argue the opposite, but the ambiguity opened the way for Maryland’s many, longstanding enemies to do what they had always wanted to do. It also opened the way for rumors that the overthrow of Baltimore’s government was coming, which emboldened Puritans within the colony to stop recognizing his authority.
So, Providence puritans stopped cooperating with Baltimore’s government at all. They refused to send delegates to the Assembly, which meant that no acts of any real significance could be passed. They continued to refuse to pay their rents, which of course affected Baltimore financially, but uncertainty over which land was being used also messed up settlement patterns and made the colony as a whole less secure from attack. And when those attacks came, largely from the Susquehannocs, they refused to send people to fight. They, and at this point it’s worth noting, Providence was the town founded largely by Virginia’s exiled puritans, pulled Maryland to a standstill.
Stone did what he could to shore up Baltimore’s authority. He made helping William Claiborne worthy of the death penalty and confiscation of property. He declared that land which had been deserted, or supposedly deserted in order to avoid paying rent, wouldn’t just be left alone but would be redistributed within three years, or used for Baltimore’s personal profit. He also made Providence an official county, with its own deeply puritan leader, and renamed it Ann Arundel County, in honor of Baltimore’s wife who had just died. And Stone started working to fortify the colony. First, these forts would help in the fight against the Susquehannocs which had been attacking Puritan settlements in Providence and Kent, but they’d also enable them to be prepared for Claiborne, should he decide to do anything.
And it wasn’t long before Claiborne did decide to do something. He and Richard Bennett were now in charge of Virginia, and only two weeks after getting power there, their eyes looked north. Bennett, by the way, deserves a bit of an introduction before we go any farther. He had lived in Virginia since he was a child, his family having migrated in the last days of the Virginia Company in the 1620s. He was one of the dedicated Puritans who had been in conflict with Berkeley, and who Berkeley had wanted out of Virginia. Taking a keener interest in Maryland, Bennett had been one of the people who had helped Calvert retake the colony from Richard Ingle, and he had done this in hopes of helping set up a stronger Puritan presence there. After Calvert had won, Bennett had been one of the leaders who set up the Providence settlement. So, he had been one of the leaders of every single Puritan endeavor in the Chesapeake, and had therefore become Parliament’s choice of governor for Virginia, with Claiborne his second in command and a man with whom he agreed on just about everything.
They got power March 12, 1652, and on March 29 they went to Maryland. There, they demanded, in effect, that Marylanders declare their loyalty to the Commonwealth over Lord Baltimore. They said all government actions should be done in the name of the Keepers of the Liberty of England, rather than lord Baltimore. And, they wanted every single Marylander to sign something called the Engagement, which in this case was an oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth, without king or house of lords. Stone and the rest of Maryland’s leadership agreed to the second, but hesitated to agree to the first demand. Whatever Bennett and Claiborne said, to do that would be to effectively eliminate Baltimore’s leadership in Maryland. This wasn’t replacing the king’s authority, because Maryland had been unique in that nothing in the colony had really referenced the king. It was only an attack on Baltimore’s authority, and his authority was really the only thing keeping the colony together at this point. Plus, it was unjust, because Baltimore was loyal to the Commonwealth and they had no right to be reducing Maryland.
When Stone and his government wouldn’t agree to this demand, Bennett and Claiborne’s force took over Maryland’s government. They asked to see Stone’s commission, and when he showed it to them, they violently took it. That in hand, they ordered that everything be done exactly as they wanted. In place of Baltimore’s appointees, they appointed Virginia puritans, including Francis Yeardley, son of the famous Virginia governor George. Bennett would be governor for the next year, and Claiborne again his second in command, at least while they got everything fixed. All laws contrary to those of England would be nullified, which meant no more religious tolerance for Catholics, and anyone who refused to sign the Engagement would not be allowed to vote or take office, which meant no tolerance for Anglicans. And, when a treaty with the Susquehannocs was written, it explicitly gave Claiborne Kent and Palmer’s Islands, as well as the right to all quit rents from that land. And inspired by this, the Providence Puritans decided that they’d now start paying quit rents … to their Puritan commander instead of Baltimore. This way, there was no issue of land redistribution, and even if Kent Island and Providence were historically worlds apart, legally they were the same. Baltimore’s authority in Maryland was no longer, and side note, it’s also about this time that Father Thomas Copley, that original priest, died.
And at the next assembly, Bennett’s government solidified their new authority. And, having done so, they gave the governorship back to Stone, who asked if he might return to the position even if he personally retained his oath of loyalty to Baltimore, requiring no loyalty of the colony and agreeing to change nothing about what Bennett and Stone had done. Everything was in fact now issued in the name of the Keepers of the Liberty of England, and Stone kept Bennett’s same Virginia Puritan council, making puritan-controlled Virginia the parent colony of puritan-controlled Maryland.
Within England, Colonel Mathews petitioned to make this all official, but Baltimore appealed, and the Commonwealth reiterated that it hadn’t made a decision yet. And in light of that lack of decision, Baltimore was furious when he heard just how many concessions Stone had made. And in response to news of these concessions, he issued a very terse order. You have got to keep respecting me as the authority in this colony. The colony has to keep operating as it did before until we are ordered to operate differently. Government actions? They go through my name. People who stop paying their rent to me? They lose that land. People who refuse to take the oath of fidelity to me? They don’t get land. And people who are really refusing everything to do with me and claim land anyway? They never get land. Keep being nice, keep avoiding unnecessary fights, but you also have to have a spine. There is a way this colony operates, and you have got to keep that the same until the Commonwealth tells us to stop. Otherwise, we’ve just given up right at the point when we might possibly win …
I think it’s worth reiterating before we go any further that Stone’s main qualification for the job of governor was that he was a Puritan and Parliamentarian who was willing to tolerate Catholics. He was experienced and successful in Chesapeake life, it’s true, but he had started out as an indentured servant and he hadn’t been a leader before. Demographically, Stone was the right man for the job, and he may have been a decent sort of person, but being a leader takes more than that.
Stone was loyal to Baltimore, though, and he obeyed his instructions, and effectively reinstated his power in the colony. He reappointed people who had been kicked off the council, reinstated religious toleration, and resumed requiring the oath of allegiance to Baltimore. He didn’t make a declaration or anything, just started doing these things with no explanation, and with no real plan for dealing with the fallout.
And there was fallout. In fact, Maryland started coming apart at the seams. Yeardley in particular, had a fit. And, a 13 year old girl created a massive scandal when she complained that the person she was a servant for was trying to convert her to Catholicism. Stone’s government behaved the old Baltimore way, and ordered both to stop, but fundamentally sided with the Protestant in order to minimize the controversy. And on July 4, 1654, Stone issued a proclamation charging Bennett and Claiborne, and indeed all of the Providence Puritans, with “drawing away the people, and leading them into faction, sedition and rebellion against the lord Baltimore.”
And in response to this, Bennett and Claiborne returned to St. Mary’s. On the way, they stopped to gather the Virginia Puritans of the Northern Neck, and at Providence to gather the Puritans there. Then, they ordered Stone to start running Maryland as they had previously dictated, and Stone said no. In fact, in their words, he “returning only opprobrious and uncivil language, presently mustered his whole power of men and soldiers in arms, intending to surprise the said commissioners.”
But, Stone himself was surprised when not one, but two groups of soldiers appeared and surrounded him. And Stone surrendered. And at this point, Bennett and Claiborne took over completely, and this time, they completely overhauled Maryland’s government. They turned it into a colony modeled exactly on England’s Commonwealth. Everyone who had ever borne arms against Parliament, or who was a Catholic, was forbidden from voting, and not only they, but also their sons were forbidden from holding office. When the people of St. Mary’s ignored this and voted two men to serve on the Assembly who had opposed Bennett’s government anyway, they made those two men pay for the entire cost of a new election. They took the colony’s records, and then passed dozens of laws turning Maryland into a Puritan state. Catholics would have no religious liberty, and wouldn’t be protected by the laws of the colony. They mandated triennial assemblies, and imposed a litany of new moral laws about drinking, swearing, slandering, gossiping, the Sabbath, adultery, and other things. Any law from Baltimore’s government which they needed or approved of, they reissued in the name of the Lord Protector, which is what Cromwell started to be called after dismissing Parliament, which I’ll explain later. They also renamed Ann Arundel County back to Providence County, moved the seat of government there, and renamed Calvert County into Patuxent County. And now, they actively forbade the taking of an oath of allegiance to Baltimore. In the first assembly alone, they passed 46 laws. That’s in contrast to the first under Stone in which three were passed. And all of these laws went to one purpose – there is no Baltimore, only Cromwell.
Six months later, a ship arrived in Maryland with a passenger named William Eltonhead. And Eltonhead had a message from Baltimore to Stone. “I cannot believe you are such a coward.” How dare you resign your government, my government, without so much as firing a shot, and without getting orders to do so. I’m not actually exaggerating. The exact letter doesn’t exist anymore, but from the parts that have been quoted elsewhere, that’s both the content and the tone. The word coward was definitely used. From Baltimore, the mildest of the mild, a point blank accusation of cowardice was something.
So, yet again, Stone resumed his role as governor. Stone started recruiting an army at St. Mary’s, and then his force went to the houses where the colony’s weapons were stored, raided it and armed his force (of about 200 at this point). And he seized the colony’s records back.
Bennett and Claiborne knew an uprising was imminent, and the Providence government demanded to know by what power Stone seized the records, and Stone answered that “he would show no power, but he affirmed he acted by a power from lord Baltimore, and that the lord protector had confirmed Baltimore’s power.” He dismissed them, and they returned to Providence with the news.
Then, Stone issued proclamations directly to the Puritans of Maryland. “We don’t want to hurt you. We actually really, really don’t want to fight.”
It’s almost frustrating to read at this point, because at the very point that Stone’s significantly weaker force should have been making a show of strength, he was still weakly begging for peace. It’s important to remember, though, that Stone was very inexperienced in this type of thing, and also what a precarious position Maryland was in in terms of PR back in England. The ultimate battle would be fought there, this was just fighting for the survival of Maryland long enough to hear its outcome.
And then, with an army of about 200, led by Eltonhead, Josias Fendall, William Lewis and himself, Stone marched from St. Mary’s. He collected about 11-12 boats which could transport his forces, and they made their way through the woods and waters of the Chesapeake. As they reached Herring Bay, messengers arrived from Providence asking by what authority Stone was advancing, and if he was open to negotiating. Stone seized the messengers and their boat, but three of them escaped and made their way back to Providence saying that Stone had brought an army.
And, now Stone sent his own messengers to speak to the people of Providence. He declared, yet again, that they were not there to hurt the puritans, just to reinstate Baltimore’s government until Cromwell decided what to do, and he promised not to fire the first gun, and on pain of death, to prevent any plunder. After issuing the message, though, these messengers didn’t return to Stone. The next day he sent another messenger, saying the same thing, who would arrive in the morning ahead of Stone’s evening landing.
The Puritans gathered their army, and recruited the help of an English ship which was in a nearby bay, called the Golden Lion.
So, on the evening of March 24, 1655, Stone’s army arrived in Providence’s harbor, and the Golden Lion shot at them. Rather than send a messenger, as would have been the norm, Stone landed his men on a nearby peninsula. The Golden Lion repeated its fire, and at this point Stone did send a messenger explaining his position and conduct. The messenger returned, and seemingly told Stone that the captain of the Golden Lion was satisfied with his explanation and would leave them alone.
Stone’s army then moved up the creek during the night, and the Golden Lion moved to block the mouth of that creek, so his force could not retreat. Then, they fired again, and this time, they killed someone. Stone’s army marched out of firing range, but from that direction, an army of 120 was arriving from Providence in their own boats. Stone’s sentry fired off a shot to warn Stone’s army of their approach, and Stone’s army got ready to fight. Both sides at this point raised the same standard, that of the Commonwealth of England, though Stone’s also raised Baltimore’s. The Puritans gave their cry, “In the name of God fall on. God is our strength.” And the Stone’s army theirs, “Hey for St. Mary’s!”
They fought hard, but Stone’s army was cornered and backed to the water’s edge. Stone’s army was made up of inexperienced colonists, while one of the Puritan captains and at least some of their soldiers had fought under Cromwell in England.
So, the Puritans started to gain the upper hand, and Stone’s army, backed into a corner, had to choose between surrender and death, so they surrendered. Part, though, found cover behind a tree and kept the battle going. By the end of the fight, 45 of Stone’s men had been killed or wounded, while a total of four puritans sustained injuries that would kill them. Almost all of those were inflicted by the small group behind the tree. Stone, himself, had been shot in the shoulder. The rest were taken prisoner under quarter. As an illustration of the extent to which they were cornered, only 4-5 Marylanders managed to escape the battlefield.
The rest of the survivors were marched to Providence and court, something which should not have happened to the extent it did after their surrender to quarter. And after three days, a list of ten people to be executed for treason was announced, something which was decidedly inappropriate.
The first group to be shot consisted of Eltonhead, a German servant accompanying him, Leggat, and William Lewis. And I think the execution of William Lewis is probably the best illustration of how personal this conflict was. Way, way back in the day, we’d discussed one of the first religious conflicts in Maryland, involving a Puritan servant and employee who had been preaching anti-Catholic sermons, inciting the employer to retaliate, and then getting him in trouble for that retaliation. If you search for William Lewis or Francis Gray on the website, you’ll find the episode and story. These were two of the very first settlers to Maryland. On the Providence side of this battle, indeed one of the founders of Providence, had been that same man, Francis Grey.
Lewis and Gray had been on opposite sides of everything that happened in the colony. In Ingle’s Rebellion, Lewis was exiled from the colony and treated particularly harshly, while Gray was one of the chief rebels. Providence, St. Mary’s. The court case. And now, Lewis was a prisoner and Gray was one of the leaders of the group trying him for treason, and they found him worthy of the death penalty.
These people knew each other well. They had known each other for decades, since the earliest years of the colony, when there were only a handful of people trying to survive in the wilderness of America. That someone would illegally shoot a random, inexperienced colonist-turned-soldier, or for that matter, some German indentured servant, doesn’t make sense until you realize the length of association these people had had. I mean it wasn’t even a good idea politically, because illegally shooting prisoners wasn’t exactly the way to get sympathy in the debate which was going on in England. But, there was history here, and enough emotion and animosity to lead to cold blooded, counterproductive murder.
After the first group, the next group of prisoners walked to their place of execution, but at this point, the colony’s women and some soldiers joined forces to protest the injustice of the whole affair. And to go back to my previous point, these soldiers who took mercy seem to have been the ones who were most recently from England. The remaining prisoners’ sentences were commuted, and their lives were saved. They did, however, remain imprisoned for months, to allow the puritans to send their side of the story to Cromwell first. Stone could send no mail, not even a letter to his wife, without it being censored by his captors first. They were in charge, and would remain so for the foreseeable future. They destroyed colonial records, which is one of the reasons it’s been difficult to piece together a lot of Maryland’s early history, and continued in their Puritan governance of the colony.
With that done, they let their prisoners go and sequestered, meaning confiscated, their estates. Released, Stone and his supporters worked to send their side of the story to England, too, and the ensuing pamphlet debate with both sides vying for Cromwell’s support is how we know what we know about this time of Maryland’s history.
The two sides argued exactly as you would expect. Puritans celebrated the fall of Babylon, and justified everything they did as being in opposition to an evil, oppressive, monarchical and treasonous regime. Baltimore had fought Parliament in the Civil Wars, Maryland had consistently supported the king, and as soon as he had some power, they’d be just as ready to oppose Cromwell again. They gave their legal justification, and their ideological one, and added a practical reason that Virginia must take over Maryland. It would reduce friction in the region and enable them to unite against common enemies, like the hostile Indian tribes and perhaps the Dutch of New Netherland.
And, Baltimore’s side fired back hard. They didn’t do anything wrong, and they were utterly loyal to Cromwell. And wow, the Maryland puritans have been way out of line. Shooting prisoners, really? It’s one thing to say God’s on your side, but God won’t be mocked and he does actually see this stuff. And they can whine all they want about having to sign that oath of allegiance, but Protestants of better quality than them have, so it sounded a little less religious than it did power hungry. And, by the way, not only would it be unfair to put Maryland under the actually rebellious Virginia. It would be impractical. Maryland was willing to give active loyalty in exchange for Baltimore’s being able to profit from his own colony that he set up with his own money, and toleration of a tiny group of Catholics half a world away. Toleration, by the way, which Maryland had always extended to puritans, even to Virginia puritans who had been kicked out. Virginia, on the other hand, was full of Anglicans who, first, weren’t liked by the Puritans much more than Catholics, and second, who were so bitterly against the Commonwealth that they prayed for its downfall every day, and the best case scenario that Cromwell’s government had been able to get there had been a sort of detente where they don’t cause trouble if if the government don’t bother them. So why, they asked, was this even a discussion? One of Stone’s soldiers, a former New Model Army physician, even went back to England to argue this case personally. This was best for Puritanism, and for England.
Cromwell still didn’t make a decision. He referred the issue to the lords commissioners to debate, and didn’t act further for over a year. Puritans were in control of Maryland, Stone, Baltimore and their supporters had lost everything, and the debate raged on.
Next episode, we’re going to cover a story which highlights yet another facet of the changing face of England’s colonial empire, and one which will deeply involve Claiborne-associate William Clobbery, former New Englander Samuel Vassall, and former Squanto associate John Slaney, as well Providence Island leader and Navigation Act author Maurice Thompson, and a man named Nicholas Crispe, whose family helped settle Virginia. And that is the story of the Guinea Company.