Charles Calvert (governor)

Captain Charles Calvert
Captain Charles Calvert, Governor of Maryland. Painting by John Wollaston. Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Governor of Maryland
In office 1720–1727
Preceded by	Thomas Brooke
Succeeded by	Benedict Leonard Calvert
Surveyor General to the Western Shore
In office 1726 – c. 1733
Commissary General
In office 1727–1728
Personal details
Born	1688 England
Died	February 2, 1734 (aged 42) Maryland
Spouse(s)	Rebecca Gerard
Relations	Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore (cousin)
Occupation	planter, politician

Captain Charles Calvert (1688 – February 2, 1734) was the 14th Proprietary Governor of Maryland in 1720, at a time when the Calvert family had recently regained control of their proprietary colony. He was appointed governor by his cousin Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, who in 1721 came into his inheritance. Calvert worked to reassert the Proprietary interest against the privileges of the colonists as set out in the Maryland Charter, and to ease tensions between the Lords Baltimore and their subjects. Religious tension, which had been a source of great division in the colony, was much reduced under his governorship. Captain Calvert was replaced as governor in 1727 by his cousin Benedict Leonard Calvert, though he continued to occupy other colonial offices. He suffered from early senility and died in 1734.

Calvert was born Charles Calvert Lazenby in England in 1688. Neither of his parents has been positively identified but it has long been assumed that his father was Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, 2nd Proprietor Governor of Maryland (1637–1715). His mother's identity in unknown but, judging by the Calvert family papers, she appears to have been the Countess Henrietta, also known as "Mother Calvert", who died circa 1728. However, in Douglas Richardson's Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families, 2nd Edition (pg 467), no illegitimate children are listed under Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore. There is no mention of Calvert (Lazenby).

Calvert served in England's wars against France and Spain, most likely reaching the rank of ensign by around 1709. In 1718 Calvert purchased further commissions in the army, becoming at aged 30 first a lieutenant and later a captain in the Grenadier Guards, promotions which most likely were financed by his wealthy Calvert patrons. Guards Regiments were among the most prestigious in the army and commissions were comparatively expensive.

Calvert was appointed Governor of Maryland in around 1720, sent to advance the interests of his Calvert relatives, who had recently regained control of the colony of Maryland which had been confiscated by the Crown following the events of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Among the reasons for his appointment were his loyalty to the Crown, his desire to live permanently in Maryland, and above all else his presumed loyalty to the family interest. Calvert was a pragmatic man not given to ostentation. His opening speech to the Assembly was brief, inviting the delegates "to let time and my actions show" that his governorship would serve the interests of the colony.