Artist: Unknown c.1715
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection of the Enoch Pratt Free Library
The first of the Lords Baltimore to be born in Maryland, Benedict Leonard Calvert was married in 1698/9 to Lady Charlotte Lee whom he divorced in 1705. In 1713, he converted to Anglicanism. Upon learning of his son’s conversion, Charles Calvert, Third Lord Baltimore, cut off his son’s income, making him dependent upon Queen Anne whom he petitioned for support.
While greatly angering his father, Benedict Leonard’s conversion was important, gaining the monarchy’s ear. In 1715, after his father’s death, he affirmed that he was a Protestant and petitioned for the restoration of the Charter of Maryland. Unfortunately, he died less than two months after his father. Immediately upon Benedict Leonard’s death, the title passed to his eldest son, the sixteen-year-old Charles Calvert, and Maryland was returned to the Calverts as a proprietary colony.