t
the grant to Penn, as Virginia had protested against the grant to
Baltimore--and equally in vain. England was early set upon the road to
many colonies in America, destined later to become many States. One by
one they were carved out of the first great unity.

In 1685 the tolerant Charles the Second died. James the Second, a
Catholic, ruled England for about three years, and then fled before
the Revolution of 1688. William and Mary, sovereigns of a Protestant
England, came to the throne. We have seen that the Proprietary of
Maryland and his numerous kinsmen and personal adherents were Catholics.
Approximately one in eight of other Marylanders were fellows in that
faith. Another eighth of the people held with the Church of England. The
rest, the mass of the folk, were dissenters from that Church. And now
all the Protestant elements together--the Quakers excepted--solidified
into political and religious opposition to the Proprietary's rule.
Baltimore, still in England, had immediately, upon the accession of
William and Mary, dispatched orders to the Maryland Council to proclaim
them King and Queen. But his messenger died at sea, and there was delay
in sending another. In Maryland the Council would not proclaim the new
sovereigns without instructions, and it was even rumored that Catholic
Maryland meant to withstand the new order.

In effect the old days were over. The Protestants, Churchmen and
Dissenters alike, proceeded to organize under a new leader, one John
Coode. They formed "An Association in arms for the defense of the
Protestant religion, and for asserting the right of King William and
Queen Mary to the Province of Maryland and all the English Dominions."
Now followed a confused time of accusations and counter-accusations,
with assertions that Maryland Catholics were conspiring with the Indians
to perpetrate a new St. Bartholomew massacre of Protestants, and hot
counter-assertions that this is "a sleveless fear and imagination
fomented by the artifice of some ill-minded persons." In the end Coode
assembled a force of something less than a thousand men and marched
against St. Mary's. The Council, which had gathered there, surrendered,
and the Association for the Defense found itself in power. It proceeded
to call a convention and to memorialize the King and Queen, who in the
end approved its course. Maryland passed under the immediate government
of the Crown. Lord Baltimore might still receive quit-rents and cus