Fort Kent Harford Maryland United States

William Claiborne, an English Puritan surveyor and an early settler in Virginia, had in 1631 established a trading post on Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay.

He has become a wealthy planter, a trader, and a major figure in the politics of the colony.

Following the formation of the province of Maryland, Claiborne has continued to recognize the island as part of his home colony of Virginia while Maryland’s proprietor Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, recognizes it as part of the English Province of Maryland, founded in 1632 as a Catholic colony.

Claiborne is a central figure in the disputes between the colonists of Maryland and of Virginia, partly because of his refusal to vacate the trading post on Kent Island, which in 1635 had provoked the first naval battles in North American waters.

An attorney for Cloberry and Company, who are concerned that the revenues they are receiving from fur trading has not recouped their original investment, arrive on Kent Island in autumn 1637.

The attorney takes possession of the island and bids Claiborne return to England, where Cloberry and Company file suit against him.

The attorney now invites Maryland to take over the island by force, which it does in December 1637.

The Maryland Assembly had by March 1638 declared that all of Claiborne's property within the colony now belongs to the proprietor.

Maryland temporarily wins the legal battle for Kent Island as well when Claiborne's final appeal is rejected by the Privy Council in April 1638.

The chaos of the English Civil War gives William Claiborne another opportunity to reclaim Kent Island.

The Calverts, who have received such constant support from the King, in turn support the monarchy during the early stages of the parliamentary crisis.

Claiborne find a new ally in Richard Ingle, a pro-Parliament Puritan merchant whose ships have been seized by the Catholic authorities in Maryland in response to a royal decree against Parliament.

Claiborne and Ingle see an opportunity for revenge using the Parliamentary dispute as political cover, and Claiborne seizes Kent Island in December 1644.

...Kent Island with support from Governor Berkeley of Virginia.

Calvert reasserts proprietarial rule.

Although most of Ingle’s men are granted amnesty, Ingle himself is specifically excepted from it and executed.