Proprietor.

George Calvert was a favorite of King James I, who had knighted him and appointed him a secretary of state. Calvert's interest in America began long before he had a colony of his own. He bought stock in the Virginia Company in 1609 and in 1620 an interest in a group planning to settle Newfoundland. A trip to Newfoundland changed his mind about the merits of that island's climate, and he petitioned the king in 1629 for a grant of land in Virginia. By that time Calvert's life had changed: he had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1625, a move that had cost him his royal positions and precluded any other official duty. In friendship and as a mark of compensation, James I had granted him the Irish title of Lord Baltimore. James I also, against the protests of many in England and in Virginia, granted Calvert's petition...