yal commission to trade in the
area and had established a settlement on Kent Island, opposite the
present Annapolis, far up Chesapeake Bay. By acting on the King's
instructions and supporting Baltimore's authority in the area against
Claiborne's claims, Harvey turned the second most important man in the
colony against him.

Harvey at first backed the Virginia Council's assertion that Kent
Island was a part of Virginia, and not part of the supposedly
uncultivated wilderness granted to Baltimore by the King. But in the
face of Charles's obvious desire to take the area away from Virginia,
and because Claiborne's patent authorized trade rather than settlement,
Harvey soon accepted Lord Baltimore's position that Claiborne's trading
post lay within the limits of Baltimore's jurisdiction. Irritation
between the two men increased when Harvey attempted jointly with the
Maryland authorities to conduct an examination of charges that Claiborne
was stirring up Maryland's Indians against the new settlers. Claiborne
was accused of telling the local Indians that the new settlers were not
Englishmen but Spaniards. The investigation which ensued was hampered at
every turn by Claiborne and his friends on the Virginia Council.

The Virginians were most concerned not by the apparent violation of
Virginia's territorial integrity, but by the fact that the new
settlement was being established and settled by Roman Catholics. The
Virginians were less tolerant than the King in wishing success to Lord
Baltimore, a Catholic, and his fellow religionists, in establishing a
colony on their northern border. The Virginia Council wrote Charles in
1629 thanking him for "the freedome of our Religion which wee have
enjoyed," and asserting proudly that "noe papists have beene suffered to
settle amongst us." They insisted upon tendering the oaths of supremacy
and allegiance to Lord Baltimore when he arrived in Virginia in October
1629 to consider a possible settlement, and reported to the King that he
had refused to take those oaths. Charles I had married a Catholic,
Henrietta Maria of France, and, like his father, James I, was not
disposed to allow too rigorous penalties against those who professed
religious allegiance to Rome. But the Parliament, and the people in
general, feared and hated Catholics, believing their religious beliefs
to be incompatible with loyalty to a Protestant state.

By means of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy Catholics were
r