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From: "Tony Hoskins" <>
Subject: Re: Queen Henrietta Maria, or Queen Mary: origin of "Maryland"
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 09:25:34 -0800


"I have heard alternative explanations of the name of the state
[Maryland]."

On the one hand. Undocumented, from <library.thinkquest.org>:

http://library.thinkquest.org/3337/time16.html

"Started as a Catholic colony, it was supposedly named for Charles I's
wife, Queen Henrietta Maria but really it was named for the Virgin Mary.
From the beginning, it had a Protestant majority."

A bald and utterly unsupported statement.

---
On the other. It would be inconceivable that Maryland would be so-named
in 1632 *overtly* in honor of the BVM. The only possible/likely reason
for naming the new province "Maryland would seem to be to honor the
queen - the received view.

Charter of Maryland, 1632. (from Maryland State Archives' site [see
esp. p., 6]):

http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/educ/exhibits/founding/html/charter.html

------

Anthony Hoskins
History, Genealogy and Archives Librarian
History and Genealogy Library
Sonoma County Library
3rd and E Streets
Santa Rosa, California 95404

707/545-0831, ext. 562

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