Pioneers of Liberty
Murphy, William C.
September 16, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 447 PIONEERS OF LIBERTY By WILLIAM C. MURPHY ON THAT bright millennial day, when the inhabitants of Utopia gather to celebrate the final abolition of...
...The disturbances of the commonwealth in England were reflected in America, and the heirs of the Earl of Albion fell into disfavor both in the mother country and in the colony...
...A perusal of the charter strengthens this latter theory...
...Because it had no tangible results of a permanent nature, our modern materialists deem it unworthy of notice...
...Charles Varlo, an Englishman who had purchased one-third of the charter rights of the Plowdens, and who came to America to govern the "Palatinate" for the heirs of Sir Edmund...
...Later searchers for the document looked for it in London, and when they failed to find it there, erroneously concluded that it did not exist...
...Nor were they able to reassert their claims after the Stuart restoration...
...Roger was present at the siege of Acre in 1191, and his service there won for him the right to commemorate that event by an addition to the family coat of arms...
...Another explanation that has an element of plausibility, is that the British Parliament might have opposed the grant of such a charter to Plowden, because of his Catholic faith...
...It requires little imagination to visualize the uproar that would have been precipitated in the Roundheaddominated Parliament by a proposal to confer upon a Catholic layman the powers of an Anglican bishop...
...Then, too, Charles was constantly embroiled with the British Parliament, and it is possible that he may have been more free from parliamentary interference in his capacity as King of Ireland...
...It is true that this toleration was technically limited to adherents of one of the three Christian Creeds—the Apostolic, the Athanasian, and the Nicene...
...Needless to say, Mr...
...Profiting by England's domestic troubles, the Dutch and the Swedes planted settlements within the borders of New Albion, and finally Charles II summarily disposed of the matter by specifically outlawing all prior grants and bestowing the territory upon his brother, the Duke of York...
...To her all credit...
...Many writers, indeed, ignore it altogether...
...Your Majesty well knows I find no reason to swerve from the Catholic faith, in which you and I were brought up...
...These doubts probably arose because the King granted the charter as King of Ireland and, in consequence, it was enrolled in the Chancery Office in Dublin...
...And out of the abundance of just praise accorded her, Maryland will not begrudge some recognition for others who tried and failed where she succeeded...
...Her example transferred this benign principle from the field of academic civics to that of practical politics...
...A certified copy of the original Latin charter was obtained from the Public Records Office in Dublin by Brinton Coxe, of Philadelphia, some time prior to 1881, and has been published in several historical works...
...The story runs that he was offered the Lord Chancellorship of England and a peerage, on condition that he embrace the Anglican religion...
...Maryland tried toleration and proved that toleration is feasible...
...Margaret Plowden, a sister of the Earl, was procuratrix of this convent, and one of his nieces later became a nun there...
...An important feature of it which should be remembered is that, for all practical purposes, it offered complete religious toleration...
...One of these abortive attempts was the motivating impulse behind a most fascinating and romantic episode in American history—the effort to establish the Palatinate of New Albion in the territory comprised in Long Island and what is approximately the modern state of New Jersey...
...A most distinguished member of the Plowden family was the grandfather of the Earl of New Albion, also Edmund by name, who was conceded to be one of the foremost lawyers in England during the reign of Elizabeth...
...September 16, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 447 PIONEERS OF LIBERTY By WILLIAM C. MURPHY ON THAT bright millennial day, when the inhabitants of Utopia gather to celebrate the final abolition of religious intolerance, there will be none to gainsay the recognition that will be accorded the Calverts for the moderation and wisdom displayed in the government of their province of Maryland...
...In any event, the King's action in his capacity as sovereign of Ireland was not unusual...
...Among other things, the document conferred upon Sir Edmund "all ample rights, jurisdictions, privileges, prerogatives, royalties, liberties, immunities, and royal rights and franchises whatsoever, as well by sea as by land, within the limits of the island, as by any Bishop of Durham, within the bishopric or County Palatine of Durham, within our Kingdom of England, at any time heretofore have been held, used or enjoyed, or of right ought to or can be able to have, hold or enjoy...
...Historians customarily make only passing mention of this attempted colonization...
...Why the King chose to act as King of Ireland, rather than of England, in dealing with a native of the latter 448 THE COMMONWEAL September 16, 1925 country, is a matter for conjecture...
...I should not have in charge Your Majesty's conscience one week before I should incur your displeasure, if it be Your Majesty's royal intent to continue the system of persecuting the retainers of the Catholic faith...
...Varlo returned to England bitterly disillusioned, and from that time on the Plowden grant has been a subject for academic history...
...Varlo had little success in convincing the people of New Jersey that they should abandon their newly-won independence and return to the rule of an Earl Palatine, who held title from the sovereign whose armies they had just expelled...
...In the family history of the Plowdens, it is recorded that eleven of its members were priests and thirteen were nuns, up to the period of the American Revolution...
...One thing is certain, whatever attempts at colonization may have been made, they came to naught...
...He came from a long line of Catholic ancestors, many of whom had suffered persecution for refusal to abandon their faith...
...The Stuarts frequently exercised royal prerogatives as kings of Scotland—James I, for instance, granted Nova Scotia to John Alexander to be held as a fief of the Scottish crown...
...At the close of the American Revolution, the inhabitants of the territory comprised in New Albion were startled by the appearance of Mr...
...The founder of the family, so far as genealogical records run, was Roger de Plowden, who followed Richard Coeur de Lion to the Crusades...
...Hence it is entirely justifiable to say that New Albion offered religious toleration for all who might have been expected to come there...
...But in the early seventeenth century, it must be recalled, non-Christian immigration to America was unheard of, and the number of professed infidels was negligible...
...The tolerant founders of Catholic Maryland must have drawn encouragement in those early days from the knowledge that Sir Edmund Plowden, Lord Palatine of New Albion, was an adherent of the Catholic Church...
...In his will, Sir Edmund says he held an Irish peerage and that may explain why his charter would issue from the crown of that country...
...If any American Catholics attend this notable celebration they will, undoubtedly, be enthusiastic in their praise of the Lords of Baltimore for the example which had a great deal to do with making religious toleration one of the fundamental tenets of the American theory of government...
...Some historians have been inclined to treat the whole matter of the projected settlement of New Albion as more or less of a myth...
...His reply to the Queen on this occasion, as preserved in the Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus was— Hold me dread Sovereign excused...
...I can never, therefore, countenance the persecution of its professors...
...But a great idea is never unworthy of notice and, whatever its faults of realization may have been, New Albion was a glorious concept and deserves to be remembered...
...Francis, a brother of the Earl of New Albion, suffered severe persecutions for his religion, accounts of which are preserved in the records of the convent of the English Augustinianesses, at Louvain...
...Thomas, the eldest brother of the Earl, entered the Society of Jesus in 1623, and was known in later years as Father Salisbury...
...Whatever the circumstances may have been, the charter was granted, and we know that some attempts at colonization were made...
...The British monarchs of those days styled themselves "Kings of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland"—the claim to the French throne dating back to the Norman conquest...
...He suffered many annoyances and penalties because of his faith and religious profession...
...The very existence of the charter from King Charles I, upon which Sir Edmund's right rested, has been called into question...
...Ten of the eleven priests were Jesuits...
...The extent of these attempts is a subject of controversy too complicated for discussion within present space limitations...
Vol. 2 • September 1925 • No. 19
