wards when James II was king. James was a Roman Catholic whose courtiers endeavored to persuade him that his mission in life was to overthrow the ancient National Church and to substitute for it the Church of Rome. King James, with his feeble intellect, was to succeed, where Philip of Spain, Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole, all united, had, ignominously failed! He overthrow the Church of England? He might as well have attempted to roll back the tides of the ocean, or alter the courses of the stars. He, the saviour of the Church? A second Edward the Confessor ? Well, in another it was a splendid ambition, not unworthy even of a great man. But for him it was folly. Yet vainly confident of success, he entered upon the struggle which was to terminate in the undoing of himself and his house; seeing not, at any rate heeding not, his people's growing exasperation at every new act of injustice against the Church of England which was rapidly bringing the end nearer. At last the storm broke, and it swept him from his throne. Without a blow the Protestant William of Orange became king in his stead, while all that remained of the mighty James' brilliant effort on behalf of the Italian Church was

summed up in Article IX of the Bill of Rights of 1689. "It hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant Kingdom to be governed by a Popish Prince, or by any King or Queen marrying a Papist." A more complete and crushing defeat it would be difficult to find. It fulfils our Lord's warning: "Whomsoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder."

The Maryland case was not as tragic as the English in its final issue. But in its earlier stages, and even in its later developments, it bore quite a strong resemblance to it. In Maryland there was a Roman Catholic head of the government, who, like James, was subjected to Jesuit influence, which was being used to forward precisely the same ends. So, too, its immediate result was the same, for it caused such dissatisfaction among the Anglican members, that when in 1643 the authority of the King of England was superseded, and the government changed, almost as a matter of course an insurrection immediately followed in Maryland, when the Roman priests were expelled, and Lord Baltimore's authority repudiated.

Fortunately for the Lord Proprietary of Maryland he was able truthfully to say what the English king could not say, that he was in no way concerned with the doings of his co-religionists. They only were to be blamed.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE APPEAL TO THE LORD

PROPRIETARY.

1638.

Poise the cause in justice equal scales,

Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.
-SHAKESPEARE.

The letter of Captain Cornwaleys' shows how bitter was the feeling against the measures which had been agitated in the colony. Beginning with a reference to the damages he had personally sustained from William Clayborne, Cornwaleys informs Lord Baltimore that an Act for Clayborne's attainture was on its way for his confirmation. That Act, however, was but one among others “of which if there were none more unjust, he would be as confident to see Maryland a happy commonwealth as he was then of the contrary, if his lordship should not be more wary in confirming than they had been in proposing." Earnestly therefore does he beg Lord Baltimore not to 1 Calvert Papers, Vol. I, P. 169.

sanction the least clause of the proposed legislation until "it had been thoroughly scanned and resolved by wise, learned and religious divines, to be nowise prejudicial to the immunities and privileges of that Church which is the only guide to all eternal happiness, and of which they would show themselves the most ungrateful members that ever she nourished if they attempted to deprive her of them." What those grievances were, and how they were to be remedied, the lord proprietary can ascertain from those who are far more knowing in the rights of the Church than he is. His duty is done when he has importuned his "lordship, who alone now can mend what has been done amiss, to be careful to preserve the honor of God Almighty, who only can preserve both him and Maryland." This done, in the spirit of David, when he said, "I have been young and now I am old, and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread," he tells Lord Baltimore that "he never yet heard of anyone who suffered loss by *being bountiful to God or His church, and he would not have him fear to be the first. He acknowledges that these are matters not properly falling within his cognizance, but he cannot willingly consent to anything that may not stand