Maryland's Revolution of Government, 1689–1692

My wife and I recently travelled into Maryland and, in so doing, made numerous discoveries about our respective ancestors, who were leading figures in the province. Shortly after we returned, we obtained a copy of a fascinating account of a transitional period in its history. The book is by Lois Green Carr and David William Jordan, Maryland's Revolution of Government, 1689–1692, published by Cornell University Press in 1974. I found this book interesting for three reasons. First, my wife and I share a passion for history. Second, I am a political scientist with an enduring interest in constitutional issues and the functionality of political systems. And third, at least three of my direct ancestors, along with my wife's, took part in the events recounted here and merit mention in the text and appendices.

Maryland had been established as a proprietary colony in 1634 when two ships, the Ark and the Dove, landed at what would become the first colonial capital, St. Mary's City. The proprietor of the colony was Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, who held it directly from the Crown as a personal fiefdom along quasi-feudal lines. As such colonists and future inhabitants owed fealty to the Calverts. But like the other English colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, Maryland was not governed entirely autocratically by the Calverts. A proprietary assembly was established to represent the major land holders in the colony. One of my remote ancestors, Cornelius Howard (c 1637–1680), a captain in the local militia, served in the assembly between 1671 and 1675, with one source indicating that his service may have begun as early as 1661.

Maryland's system of government was loosely modelled on that of England. Lord Baltimore, from whom my wife is descended, appointed a governor, usually a relative surnamed Calvert, to preside over what Americans typically call the executive branch. There was an appointive upper house to the colonial legislature, roughly corresponding to the House of Lords, made up primarily of loyalists to the proprietor. Like the Lords, it too functioned as a court of last resort. The lower house, counterpart to the House of Commons, consisted of representatives of the counties. Howard represented Anne Arundel County, where Annapolis, the future capital, was located.

In many political systems structured along these lines, tensions tend to arise between the monarchical and aristocratic elements—between the chief executive and the assembly. In England these tensions had led to civil war between 1642 and 1651, with Parliament temporarily emerging victorious over the Stuart king, Charles I. Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, but Parliament once again gained the upper hand in 1688, when Charles' brother James II was unseated by his son-in-law and daughter, William and Mary, in what came to be known as the Glorious Revolution.

This Revolution was in part a religious uprising of Protestants against a Roman Catholic king who was held to owe fealty to a foreign potentate. Remember that the Pope was not just the spiritual leader of millions of Catholics but also the temporal ruler of a swath of territory in the Italian peninsula now generally known as the Papal States.

Events in the homeland could scarcely have bypassed England's colonies in the new world. In 1689 a group of Protestants took control of Maryland in a bloodless coup d'état. The Calverts were Roman Catholics, and they had founded the colony as a haven for persecuted Catholics, although eventually Catholics would come to be outnumbered by Quakers and adherents of the established Church of England. The era of co-existence between Catholics and Protestants came to an end in that year. Such co-existence had been more a matter of political expediency than hallowed principle, and it collapsed quickly in the midst of fears that local Catholics would side with the French against the province's Protestants.

At this point Carr and Jordan pick up the story, as the Associators' Convention, as it came to be called, became the province's de facto legislative body while awaiting royal approval from William and Mary. Such approval would not come until March 1690/91, and a new Royal governor, Lionel Copley, arrived only in April 1692. Until then the Associators governed judiciously and with utmost caution, careful not to antagonize needlessly loyalists of Lord Baltimore. Bloodshed was avoided for the most part. Nevertheless, the business of government was largely stalled at the provincial level, with local governments picking up the slack and carrying the bulk of political responsibilities. One of the principal lessons of these events is that support for the rule of law survived on all sides, which helped to ensure stability of governance especially at the county level. Once the monarchs' will had been made clear, Maryland could once again move forward with a central government assuming its normal responsibilities.

My original motive for reading this book is that three of my ninth great grandfathers, Nicholas Gassaway, John Hammond, and Henry Hanslap, played a role in this period, while my wife's seventh great grandfather, Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, was the proprietor of Maryland who managed to lose control of the colony until 1715, after he had become Protestant and the proprietorship was restored. Gassaway was part of the Associators Convention whose authority was in doubt pending the arrival of a Royal governor. Hammond would eventually serve in the Royal assembly following the transitional period. Although he was a Protestant, Hanslap appears to have been loyal to Lord Baltimore and reluctant to accept an office from the Associators.

Yet even apart from the family connections, I found the political history fascinating. Maryland's relationship to the Crown and its functioning local institutions enabled all residents to approach the events of 1689–92 with a surprising degree of restraint and moderation. "The struggle for power at the provincial level did not destroy underlying stability. Such stability depended upon the existence of a sound institutional structure and a conscientious magistracy" (230). All of which supports my own thesis that political culture and what Walter Lippmann famously called traditions of civility carry considerable weight when it comes to the functionality of established political institutions. As long as these remain intact, a polity can endure the stresses of political change, even rapid change in unusual circumstances.