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From: CreateWks(a)aol.com [mailto:CreateWks@aol.com]
Source: VAWESTMO-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: [VAWESTMO-L] Catholics in Colonial Virginia
Here's some information about a Catholic who settled in Virginia: Also,
search "Ingle's Rebellion" for details about some prominent Northern Neck
Protestant's parts in the dissolution of Lord Calvert's proprietary...
Margaret Brent: A Woman of Property By Professor James Henretta
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In 1647 the new Maryland colony was in crisis. Protestants had revolted
against the Catholic government and seized control of the colony. To
preserve
Maryland as a refuge for Catholics and safeguard his family's interests,
Governor Leonard Calvert hired mercenary soldiers from Virginia. Lacking
hard
currency to pay them, he pledged his estate and that of his brother,
Cecilius
Calvert (Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of Maryland), as security for their
wages. But just as his soldiers put down the revolt, Governor Calvert died,
plunging the government into disarray, without authority or funds to pay the
restless mercenaries. On his deathbed Leonard Calvert named Thomas Green to
succeed him as governor but entrusted his personal estate to a prominent
landowner, Margaret Brent. Telling her "I make you my sole Exequtrix. Take
all, pay all," he left the resolution of the crisis in her hands.
The woman who accepted this challenge was born around 1601 in
Gloucestershire, England, into a substantial gentry family. But as
Catholics,
the Brent's religious freedom and fortune were increasingly precarious.
Since
the death of Queen Mary in 1557, English Catholics had endured almost
continuous religious persecution, and the growing power of militant Puritans
during the 1630s promised new hardships for the Brents and other Catholics.
The family faced a troubled financial future as well. With thirteen
children,
Margaret Brent's parents had done their utmost to propagate their Catholic
faith, but their fruitfulness threatened the next generation with economic
decline. In migrating to Maryland, the Brent children hoped to use the
modest
funds provided by their parents and their ties with the Calverts to maintain
their gentry status.
Margaret Brent, her sister Mary, and their brothers Giles and Fulke arrived
in Maryland in 1638. They carried a letter from their coreligionist Lord
Baltimore recommending that they be granted land on favorable terms, and the
grant was made. Margaret and Mary took up the "Sisters Freehold" of 70 acres
in St. Mary's City, the capitol of the colony. Four years later Margaret
acquired another 1,000 acres on Kent Island from her brother Giles. Margaret
soon won the trust and favor of Governor Calvert, sharing with him the
guardianship of Mary Kitomaquund, the daughter of a Piscataway chief, who
was
being educated among the English.
The governor's death during the 1647 crisis threatened the Brent's
ambitions, which depended on Catholic rule and access to the governing
family
and its allies in the assembly. To preserve her family's religious freedom
and its wealth and influence Margaret Brent would have to save the colony
from the mutinous soldiers. Now a mature woman of forty-six, Brent was
unusually well qualified for this task. Like many women of gentle birth, she
had received some preparation for public affairs; she had enjoyed a basic
education in England and had watched her father conduct the business of his
estate. But, almost unheard of for a woman, she also had considerable
experience in the public arena. As a single woman of property in Maryland,
she had appeared frequently before the Provincial Court to file suits
against
her debtors. In addition, she had occasionally acted as an attorney,
pleading
the cases of her brother Giles and various women before the court.
Brent did not hesitate to use the power and authority Calvert had assigned
to
her. First, since food was in short supply and the soldiers camped in St.
Mary's City were demanding bread, she arranged for corn to be imported from
Virginia. Then, to pay the soldiers, she spent all of Leonard Calvert's
personal estate. When that proved inadequate, she adroitly exploited her
position as the governor's legal executor to draw on the resources of the
Lord Proprietor. Using the power of attorney Governor Calvert had held as
Baltimore's representative, Brent sold the proprietor's cattle to pay the
troops. Once paid, the soldiers promptly dispersed, some becoming settlers,
allowing Governor Green to restore order to the increasingly Protestant
colony. To preserve Maryland as a refuge for Catholics, Lord Baltimore had
the assembly pass a Toleration Act (1649), which allowed the free exercise
of
religion by all Christians.
Margaret Brent's vigorous advocacy of the interests of her family and the
Calverts did not go unchallenged. In January 1648 she demanded two votes in
the assembly, one for herself as a freeholder and one in her role as the
proprietor's attorney. For reasons that do not appear on the record, the
Provincial Court opposed her claim: it "denyed that the said Mrs. Brent
should have any vote in the house." From England, Lord Baltimore launched a
"bitter invective" against Brent, protesting against the sale of his cattle
and accusing her of wasting his estate. Baltimore's attack was partly
designed to convince the Puritan Parliament, which had just defeated the
king
in the English Civil War, that he did not favor Catholics. He also hoped to
recover some of his property, which he suspected had fallen into the hands
of
the Brent family. Although the Maryland assembly declined to grant Margaret
Brent a vote, it did defend her stewardship of Baltimore's estate, advising
him that it "was better for the Collonys safety at that time in her hands
than in any mans . . . for the Soldiers would never have treated any others
with that Civility and respect. . . ."
No longer assured of the proprietor's favor, the Brents turned to new
strategies to advance their interests. Giles Brent married Mary Kitomaquund,
the Piscataway Indian, perhaps hoping to gain land or power from her
influential father, and moved with her to Virginia in 1650. The next year
Margaret and Mary Brent also took up lands in Virginia, on the Northern
Neck,
gradually settling their estate with migrants from England. Margaret Brent
never married, making her one of the very few English women in the early
Chesapeake not to do so. She died on her Virginia plantation, named "Peace,"
in 1671, bequeathing extensive property in Virginia and Maryland, mostly to
her brother Giles and his children.
Julie