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George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore
b.Bet 1579 and 1580 Danby-Wiske, Yorkshire, England
d.12 Apr 1632 London, Middlesex, England
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m. 15 Dec 1575
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m. 22 Nov 1604
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m. Bef 1626
Facts and Events
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (; 1580 – 15 April 1632), was an English politician and colonial administrator. He achieved domestic political success as a member of parliament and later Secretary of State under King James I. He lost much of his political power after his support for a failed marriage alliance between Prince Charles and the Spanish House of Habsburg royal family. Rather than continue in politics, he resigned all of his political offices in 1625 except for his position on the Privy Council and declared his Catholicism publicly. He was created Baron Baltimore in the Peerage of Ireland upon his resignation. Baltimore Manor was located in County Longford, Ireland. Calvert took an interest in the British colonisation of the Americas, at first for commercial reasons and later to create a refuge for persecuted Irish and English Catholics. He became the proprietor of Avalon, the first sustained English settlement on the southeastern peninsula on the island of Newfoundland (off the eastern coast of modern Canada). Discouraged by its cold and sometimes inhospitable climate and the sufferings of the settlers, he looked for a more suitable spot further south and sought a new royal charter to settle the region, which would become the state of Maryland. Calvert died five weeks before the new Charter was sealed, leaving the settlement of the Maryland colony to his son Cecil (1605–1675). His second son Leonard Calvert (1606–1647) was the first colonial governor of the Province of Maryland.
George may have given his own pedigree to the heralds, or a herald may have compiled it. It appears in the 1612 Visitation report, but may be a later addition, as the date 1619 is mentioned. It isn't signed, unlike the other pedigrees collected in 1612. His mother is named as "Alice, daughter of John Crosland of Crosland". But no other trace of Alice or John seems to be known. They do not appear in pedigrees of the Crosland family of Crosland-hill. George obtained his own grant of arms. The grant makes no mention of his parents. Later he, or his son and heir Cecil, quartered the arms of Crosland, of Crosland-hill - the arms of George's stepmother Grace. The quartered arms became part of the Maryland state seal, and later, the state flag. This makes the identity of George's mother highly political, and makes it difficult for some Americans to contemplate the possibility that perhaps the Calverts had no valid claim to quarter Crosland (notwithstanding that the assumption of invalid arms and quarterings was common in England). References
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