ABSTRACT
Though the proprietorial family in Maryland, the Caiverts, was Catholic, the population had mixed religious beliefs from the earliest days of English settlement. Freedom of worship for Catholics there depended on maintaining a policy of religious toleration in a period which saw anti-Catholic measures in both Virginia and Massachusetts. The political and religious upheaval in England and the emergence of the Commonwealth provided the opportunity for the proprietor, Lord Baltimore's appointed governor, William Stone, to be overthrown and Catholicism to be temporarily outlawed in abrogation of the tolerant Act Concerning Religion (1649). The pamphleteer, John Langford, in defence of the Caiverts was responding to justifications offered on behalf of the overthrow of Stone's administration. Religious conflict continued to be a feature of Maryland history later in the seventeenth century.
