Old Virginia and her neighbours

MARYLAND'S VICISSITUDES. 151Governor Charles Calvert, his uncle Philip, hiscousin William, Mr. Baker Brooke, who had marriedcousin William's sister, Mr. William Talbot,who was another cousin, and Mr. Henry Coursey,who was uncle Philip's bosom friend, we ^he familyseem to be assisting at a pleasant little p"*"'^"family party.Again, when the governor marriesa widow, and each of his five stepchildren marries,and we are told that "every one who becamerelated to the family soon obtained an office,"^ webegin to realize that there was coming to be quitea clan to be supported from the revenues of asmall province. Nepotism may not be the blackestof crimes, but it is pretty certain to breed trouble.The governing power opposed to this familyparty was the House of Burgesses, or lower houseof assembly. Those freeholding tenants and smallproprietors who had brought with them from Englandtheir time-honoured habits of self-governmentin court leet and court baron, represented thedemocratic element in the constitution ofConflict inMaryland, as the upper house repre- theaasemsentedthe oligarchical element. Thehistory of the period we are considering is thehistory of a constitutional struggle between thetwo houses. We have seen that it was not a partof the proprietor's original scheme that the assemblyshould take an initiative in legislation, andthat on this ground he refused his assent to thefirst group of laws sent to him in 1635 for hissignature. Apparently it was his idea that hisburgesses should simply comment on acts1 F. E. Sparks, op. cit. p. 65. ,passed