Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore
Encyclopedia
Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, 4th Proprietor of Maryland
Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S...

(February 6, 1731/1732 – September 4, 1771) was an English nobleman
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 and last in the line of Barons Baltimore
Baron Baltimore
Baron Baltimore, of Baltimore Manor in County Longford, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1625 for George Calvert and became extinct on the death of the sixth Baron in 1771. The title was held by several members of the Calvert family who were proprietors of the palatinates...

. Although he exercised almost feudal power in the Province of Maryland
Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S...

, he never once set foot in the colony and, unlike his father, he took little interest in politics, treating his estates, including Maryland, largely as sources of revenue to support his extravagant and often scandalous lifestyle. In 1768 he was accused of abduction and rape by Sarah Woodcock, a noted beauty who kept a milliner's shop at Tower Hill. The jury acquitted Calvert but he left England soon afterwards, and never recovered from the public scandal which surrounded the trial. Dogged by criticism and poor health, he died in Naples at the age of 39.

Early life

Frederick Calvert was born in 1731, the eldest son of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore
Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore
Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, 3rd Proprietor and 17th Proprietary Governor of Maryland, FRS was a British nobleman and Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland...

, 3rd Proprietor Governor of Maryland (1699–1751). He was named after his godfather, Frederick, Prince of Wales
Frederick, Prince of Wales
Frederick, Prince of Wales was a member of the House of Hanover and therefore of the Hanoverian and later British Royal Family, the eldest son of George II and father of George III, as well as the great-grandfather of Queen Victoria...

, the eldest son of George II
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...

, and father of George III. The young Frederick was sent to Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 to be educated, where he acquired some proficiency in the classics. Calvert had two sisters, the Hon. Caroline Calvert, born circa. 1745, and the Hon. Louisa Calvert.

Adulthood and Inheritance

In 1751 Charles Calvert died, and Frederick, aged just 20, inherited from his father the title Baron Baltimore and the Proprietary Governor
Proprietary Governor
Proprietary Governors were individuals authorized to govern proprietary colonies. Under the proprietary system, individuals or companies were granted commercial charters by the King of England to establish colonies. These proprietors then selected the governors and other officials in the colony....

ship of the Province of Maryland
Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S...

, becoming at once both a wealthy nobleman in England and a powerful figure in America. Maryland was then a colony
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 of the Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

, administered directly by the Calverts. Frederick benefited from an income of around £10,000 a month from taxes and rents, an immense sum at the time. In addition he controlled shares in the Bank of England, and an estate at Woodcote Park
Woodcote Park
Woodcote Park is a stately home in Surrey, England, currently owned by the Royal Automobile Club. It was formerly the seat of a number of prominent English families, including the Calvert family, Barons Baltimore and Lords Proprietor of the colony of Maryland...

, in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

.

Maryland

Calvert's inheritance coincided with a period of rising discontent in Maryland, amid growing demands by the legislative assembly
Legislative Assembly
Legislative Assembly is the name given in some countries to either a legislature, or to one of its branch.The name is used by a number of member-states of the Commonwealth of Nations, as well as a number of Latin American countries....

 for an end to his family's authoritarian rule. Frederick, however, remained aloof from the colony and never set foot in it in his lifetime. Instead, he spent time in England and on the European continent, particularly in Italy. He also lived for a time in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, but had to leave after being accused of keeping a private harem
Harem
Harem refers to the sphere of women in what is usually a polygynous household and their enclosed quarters which are forbidden to men...

. Calvert lived a life of leisure, writing verse and regarding the Province of Maryland
Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S...

 as little more than a source of revenue. The colony was ruled through governors appointed by Calvert, such as Horatio Sharpe
Horatio Sharpe
Horatio Sharpe was the 22nd Proprietary Governor of Maryland from 1753 to 1768 under the Restored Proprietary Government.-Biography:...

 and Robert Eden. Frederick's frequent travels made him difficult to contact and meant that Maryland was largely ruled without him.

Marriage

On March 9, 1753, he married Lady Diana Egerton (March 3, 1731/1732 – August 13, 1758), youngest daughter of Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater
Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater
Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater , known as Viscount Brackley from 1687 to 1701 and as the Earl of Bridgewater from 1701 to 1720, was a British peer and courtier...

 by Lady Rachel Russell. The union was not a success, and the couple spent most of their married life apart. They had no children, and in May 1756 they were formally separated, due to an "incompatibility of temper". In 1758, Lady Diana "died from a hurt she received by a fall out of a Phaeton carriage", while accompanied by her husband. Although Frederick was suspected of foul play, no charges were ever brought.

European travels

Calvert's reputation for exotic living spread quickly. In 1764 James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....

 (1740–1795) began his Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

 of Europe, having heard that Baltimore was "living at Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 like a Turk, with his seraglio all around him"." Boswell also observed that Baltimore "…lived luxuriously and inflamed his blood, then he became melancholy and timorous, and was constantly taking medicines…he is living a strange, wild, life, useless to his country, except when raised to a delirium, and must soon destroy his constitution".

Calvert spent a good deal of time in Italy, where the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art...

 (1717–1768) described him as being "one of those worn-out beings, a hipped Englishman, who had lost all physical and moral taste".

Such was Calvert's fascination with the Ottoman Turks
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...

 that In 1766, on his return to England, he pulled down part of his London house, rebuilding it in the style of a Turkish Harem. In 1767 Calvert published an account of his travels in the East, titled A tour to the East, in the years 1763 and 1764: with Remarks on the City of Constantinople and the Turks. Also Select Pieces of Oriental Wit, Poetry and Wisdom. The book, said Horace Walpole, "deserved no more to be published than his bills on the road for post-horses", adding that it demonstrated how "a man may travel without observation, and be an author without ideas".

Calvert's spending was prodigious, and he spent considerable sums of money on his family estate at Woodcote Park
Woodcote Park
Woodcote Park is a stately home in Surrey, England, currently owned by the Royal Automobile Club. It was formerly the seat of a number of prominent English families, including the Calvert family, Barons Baltimore and Lords Proprietor of the colony of Maryland...

, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

. According to Horace Walpole, Frederick spent a great deal of money making the interior of the house 'tawdry' and 'ridiculous' in the 'French' style.

Trial, Scandal and Decline

In 1768, Frederick was accused of abduction and rape by Sarah Woodcock, a noted beauty who kept a milliner's shop at Tower Hill
Tower Hill
Tower Hill is an elevated spot northwest of the Tower of London, just outside the limits of the City of London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Formerly it was part of the Tower Liberty under the direct administrative control of Tower...

. He was indicted at Kingston
Kingston upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a suburb situated south west of Charing Cross. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the...

 Assizes
Assizes
Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to::;in common law countries :::*assizes , an obsolete judicial inquest...

, and put on trial., pleading not guilty by reason of consent. After deliberating for an hour and twenty minutes the jury acquitted Calvert
, believing that Woodcock did not make adequate attempts to escape.

Much salacious gossip accompanied the trial, and in the same year one of Calvert's mistresses, Sophia Watson, wrote an autobiography titled Memoirs of the Seraglio of the Bashaw of Merryland, by a Discarded Sultana (London, 1768) Such was Baltimore's reputation that her readers were in no doubt as to whom she was referring. Sultana Watson offered many intimate details of life in the seraglio, including the perhaps unkind suggestion that Baltimore himself was barely able to satisfy one, let alone eight, mistresses.

Following his acquittal Frederick left England, presumably hoping that his notoriety did not extend to Europe. In this he seems to have been at least partly correct, as in July 1769 the British Ambassador to Russia reported that "Lord Baltimore arrived here last week from Sweden, I had the honour to present him to the Empress who was pleased to receive his Ld extremely graciously". In any event, Calvert's brush with the law does not appear to have affected his unconventional living arrangements. Count Maximilian Von Lamberg wrote of his travels:
"In 1769 my Lord was travelling with eight women, a physician, and two negroes, which he called his corregidores, who were entrusted with the discipline of his little seraglio. With the aid of his physician he conducted odd experiments on his houris: he fed the plump ones only acid foods and the thin ones milk and broth. He arrived at Vienna with the train I have described; when the chief of police requested him to declare which of the eight ladies was his wife, he replied that he was an Englishman, and that when he was called upon to give an account of his sexual arrangements, if he could not settle the matter with his fists, it was his practice to set out instantly on his travels again."


By this time it is evident that he was suffering from financial difficulties, and in 1768 he sold the family's great estate at Woodcote Park
Woodcote Park
Woodcote Park is a stately home in Surrey, England, currently owned by the Royal Automobile Club. It was formerly the seat of a number of prominent English families, including the Calvert family, Barons Baltimore and Lords Proprietor of the colony of Maryland...

, apparently to a wealthy Soho upholsterer.

Death in Naples

Calvert would never return to his native England. He remained on the continent, "constantly moving...that he might not know where he should be buried", and it was in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 in September 1771 that he contracted a fever and died. His body was returned to London, lying in state at the Great Room of Exeter Exchange
Exeter Exchange
The Exeter Exchange was a building on the north side of the Strand in London, with an arcade extending partway across the carriageway...

, Strand
Strand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...

, and was interred in his family's vault at St. Martin's "with much funeral pomp, the cavalcade extending from the church to the eastern extremity of Epsom". According to Gentleman's Quarterly: "His Lordship had injured his character in his life by seduction, so that the populace paid no regard to his memory when dead, but plundered the room where his body lay the moment it was removed".

He was buried in Epsom
Epsom
Epsom is a town in the borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England. Small parts of Epsom are in the Borough of Reigate and Banstead. The town is located south-south-west of Charing Cross, within the Greater London Urban Area. The town lies on the chalk downland of Epsom Downs.-History:Epsom lies...

, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

.

Family and children

Calvert had numerous illegitimate children by various women, though he does appear to have attempted to support them. He is said to have left, on his death "a whole seraglio of white, black etc to provide for",

Baltimore had two children by Mrs Hester Whelan:
  • Henry Harford
    Henry Harford
    Henry Harford, 5th Proprietor of Maryland was the last proprietary owner of the British colony of Maryland. He was born in 1758 the eldest but illegitimate son of Frederick Calvert 6th Baron Baltimore, and his mistress Hester Whelan...

     (1758–1834), the last Lord Proprietor of Maryland.
  • Frances Mary Harford (1759–1822) who married The Hon. William Frederick Wyndham (1763–1828) on July 21, 1784. Their son George Wyndham became the 4th Earl of Egremont
    Earl of Egremont
    Earls of Egremont was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1749, along with the subsidiary title of Baron Cockermouth, for Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, with remainder to his nephews Sir Charles Wyndham, 4th Baronet, of Orchard Wyndham, and Percy Wyndham-O’Brien...

    .


In addition, he fathered twin daughters with Elizabeth Dawson of Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

.
  • Sophia Hales (born c.1765)
  • Elizabeth Hales (born c.1765).


He had another daughter, Charlotte Hope, born in Hamburg in 1770, with Elizabeth Hope of Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...

, Germany.

Maryland and the War of Independence

In his will, Frederick left his proprietary Palatinate of Maryland to his eldest illegitimate son, Henry Harford, then aged just 13. This was done against the wishes of his family, though Frederick did provide for cash payments to his sisters, specifically £20,000 to be divided between Louisa and Caroline. The colony, perhaps grateful to be rid of Frederick at last, duly recognized Harford as Calvert's heir. However, the will was challenged by the family of Frederick's sister, Louisa Calvert Browning, who did not recognize Harford's inheritance. Before the case could grind its way through the Court of Chancery, events in America would change Maryland for ever. Unfortunately for the young Henry, by the time he had reached adulthood, Maryland had become engulfed by the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

 and by 1776 was at war with Britain. Henry Harford ultimately lost almost all his colonial possessions, though he would remain wealthy due to his extensive inheritance in Great Britain.

Reputation and legacy

Calvert was not generally well regarded by his contemporaries. One characterized him as "Feeble in body, conceited, frivolous, and dissipated, but withal generous and sympathetic... [a man] who gave himself up to a life of pleasure". Another described him as "a disreputable and dissolute degenerate". Posterity has been little kinder to his reputation.

Frederick County
Frederick County
Frederick County is the name of two counties in the United States.* Frederick County, Maryland* Frederick County, Virginia...

, Maryland, is named after the last Baron Baltimore, and the official flag of the State of Maryland
Flag of Maryland
The flag of the state of Maryland consists of the heraldic banner of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. It is the only state flag in the United States to be based on English heraldry. The flag of the state of Maryland consists of the heraldic banner of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. It is...

, uniquely among the 50 states, bears witness to his family legacy.

Published works

  • A tour to the East, in the years 1763 and 1764: with Remarks on the City of Constantinople and the Turks. Also Select Pieces of Oriental Wit, Poetry and Wisdom, London (1767).
  • Gaudia poetica Latina, Anglica, et Gallica Lingua Composita, London (1770).

See also

  • Baron Baltimore
    Baron Baltimore
    Baron Baltimore, of Baltimore Manor in County Longford, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1625 for George Calvert and became extinct on the death of the sixth Baron in 1771. The title was held by several members of the Calvert family who were proprietors of the palatinates...

  • History of Maryland in the American Revolution
    History of Maryland in the American Revolution
    The Province of Maryland had been a British colony since 1632 and did not at first favor breaking away from Great Britain, but in time became a supporter of the Revolution...

  • Province of Maryland
    Province of Maryland
    The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S...


External links

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