Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (8 August 1605 – 30 November 1675) was an English politician and lawyer who was the first proprietor of Maryland. Born in Kent, England in 1605, he inherited the proprietorship of overseas colonies in Avalon (Newfoundland) along with Maryland after the 1632 death of his father, George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (1580–1632), for whom it had been originally intended in a vast land grant from King Charles I (1600–1649, reigned 1625–1649). Young Calvert proceeded to establish and manage the Province of Maryland as a proprietary colony for English Catholics from his English country house of Kiplin Hall in North Yorkshire.
As a Catholic, he continued his father's legacy by promoting religious tolerance in the colony. He also was involved in the establishment of the Newfoundland Colony and the Province of Avalon. Maryland quickly became a haven for English Catholics in the Americas, particularly due to rising religious persecution in England. Governing Maryland's affairs since its founding for 44 years, Calvert died in England in 1675. After his death, the Protestant Revolution along the Chesapeake Bay ("Glorious Revolution") of 1689, matched events occurring overseas across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe, overturning King James II and the Stuart royal dynasty of England and Scotland, and ended Roman Catholic control (and temporarily that of the Calvert family and the Lords Baltimore) of the Province of Maryland colony (including the other original Thirteen Colonies along the East Coast of British America), and established Protestant supremacy.
