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) (off the eastern coast of the North America continent), 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).

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.

[citation needed] In 1628, Cecil Calvert accompanied his father, along with most of his siblings and his stepmother, to the newly settled Colony of Newfoundland.

This was shortly after the death, in April 1632, of his father, George who had long sought the charter to found a colony in the mid-Atlantic area to serve as a refuge for English Roman Catholics.

[citation needed] When the Crown realised that settlers from Virginia had already crossed the bay to begin settling the southern tip of their eastern shore, the grant was revised to include the eastern shore only as far south as a line drawn east from the mouth of the Potomac River (including the future State of Delaware).

[citation needed] Baltimore's fee for the Charter, which was legally a rental of the land from the King, was one-fifth of all gold and silver found and the delivery of two Native American arrows to the royal castle at Windsor every Easter.

[9] Rather than going to the colony himself, Baltimore stayed behind in England to deal with the political threat and sent his next younger brother Leonard in his stead.

[10] The complaint claimed that Maryland had not truly been unsettled, as stated in its charter, because William Claiborne had previously run a trading station on Kent Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay off the eastern shore.

[12] There, two Jesuit priests (including Father Andrew White) and nearly 200 more settlers boarded before the ships set out across the Atlantic Ocean.

He directed his brother to seek information about those who had tried to thwart the colony and to contact William Claiborne to determine his intentions for the trading station on Kent Island.

[9] Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, struggled to maintain possession of Maryland during the English Civil War by trying to convince Parliament of his loyalty; he appointed a Protestant, William Stone, as his governor.

[citation needed] On 21 April 1649, Maryland passed the Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the "Act Concerning Religion", mandating religious tolerance[18] for Trinitarian Christians only (those who profess faith in the "Holy Trinity" – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, excluding Nontrinitarian faiths).

The Calvert family sought enactment of the law to protect Catholic settlers and Nonconformist Protestants who did not conform to the established Church of England.

Sir George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, cited the huge expense of fighting the French privateer de la Rade as one of the reasons for abandoning the Colony of Avalon in 1629.

Parish records state that he is buried at St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church, London, UK,[25] though the exact location of his grave is unknown.

However, genealogists for Kiplin Hall state, "A number of the early Calverts were buried at St Giles in the Fields, Charing Cross Road, London.

The later reunification of the two squares of the colonial seal and proprietary family's coat-of-arms in the increased use of a "Maryland Flag" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries symbolised the post-war reconciliation of the two sides of the bitterly divided border state.

The black and gold quarters were the arms of the Calverts themselves, while the red and silver were for the Crosslands, the family of the 1st Baron's mother, Alice.

[33] Shield: Crest: Out of a ducal coronet 2 pennants flying, the dexter Or, the sinister Sable Supporters: Two leopards guardant Proper Motto: (Italian), Fatti maschii, parole femine, meaning, "Manly deeds, womanly words."