Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore

Who was Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore?

Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, 4th Proprietor of Maryland was an English nobleman and last in the line of Barons Baltimore. Although he exercised almost feudal power in the Province of Maryland, he never once set foot in the colony and, unlike his father, he took little interest in politics, treating his estates, including Maryland, largely as sources of revenue to support his extravagant and often scandalous lifestyle. In 1768 he was accused of abduction and rape by Sarah Woodcock, a noted beauty who kept a milliner's shop at Tower Hill. The jury acquitted Calvert but he left England soon afterwards, and never recovered from the public scandal which surrounded the trial. Dogged by criticism and poor health, he contracted a fever and died in Naples at the age of 39.