Charles Carroll was a wealthy lawyer and planter in colonial Maryland. Carroll, a Catholic, is best known because his efforts to hold office in the Protestant-dominated colony resulted in the disfranchisement of the colony’s Catholics. The second son of Irish Catholic parents, Carroll was educated in France as a lawyer before returning to England.
About Charles Carroll the Settler in brief
Charles Carroll was a wealthy lawyer and planter in colonial Maryland. Carroll, a Catholic, is best known because his efforts to hold office in the Protestant-dominated colony resulted in the disfranchisement of the colony’s Catholics. The second son of Irish Catholic parents, Carroll was educated in France as a lawyer before returning to England, where he pursued the first steps in a legal career. He was the wealthiest man in the colony by the time of his death. His son, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, became a wealthy planter and his grandson was the only Catholic signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. The Maryland colony was established in the 1630s on land granted by this charter. It was intended as a haven for English Catholics and other religious minorities. The colony’s Catholic proprietor, Charles Calvert, was a former member of Parliament and Secretary of State to James I, whose Catholicism had effectively ended his political career. It is likely that Charles Carroll was fostered by the wealthier Grace, who had no son; his greater resources could provide for the child’s education. According to family tradition, Carroll secured a position as clerk to William Herbert, 1st Marquess of Powis, an Englishman who was one of two Catholic peers in the court of James II. The Protestant William Orange invaded England in 1688 and recognized Carroll and his wife Mary as the new Queen and Queen of Maryland. Soon after his arrival in Maryland, Carroll presented his commission to the colony’s council and was recognized as Attorney General of the new colony.
He arrived in a place already riven by differences by religious and class differences, whereas the Catholic majority were the wealthy and the Protestant majority of the lower house of the proprietary assembly, appointed by the Calvert family, were appointed by Calvert to the lower House of the Assembly. In the last years of his life, Carroll attempted to regain some vestige of political power for Catholics in the Maryland colony, but the Protestant colonial assembly and Governor John Hartdisfranchised them. The exact place of his birth is unclear, though it likely occurred near the small town of Aghagurty that Carroll’s father took as part of his name. The family lost much of their land and wealth in the English Civil War. The family continued to have limited means compared to their former status. En route, Carroll changed his family motto from In fide et in bello forte to Ubicumque cum libertate . Soon after he left, the new King William II fled and Queen Mary was known as the Queen of the Glorious Revolution, which had profound implications for the future of Maryland and for Carroll’s family. The new King and Queen had been leery of Catholicism—which had been recognized as the religion of Queen Mary. Carroll’s son and grandson were the only Catholics to sign the Declaration of independence.
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