Sir George Calvert probably drafted with his own hand--the hand of an expert and accomplished man of the court--the charter of April 7, 1623, that conferred on him an authority little short of sovereignty over his new territory. This masterpiece of dexterous charter-making afforded a model for other proprietary charters, and Calvert himself bettered it but little in the Maryland charter of a later date. The ambiguous passages in the Maryland charter, which have been accounted evidence of a design to make way for the toleration or even the possible dominance of Roman Catholicism, appear already in the charter of Avalon. Was the colony of 1621 or its charter of 1623 intended to supply a refuge, if one should be needed, for Englishmen of the Catholic faith? The question is not easily answered. The primary design of the Avalon colony was, no doubt, to better the fortunes of Sir George Calvert and to lift him and his successors into the authority and dignity of counts-palatine in the New World. But there can hardly be a doubt that, before the charter of 1623 was granted, Secretary Calvert was already a Catholic, secretly or latently, if not overtly. His charter of Avalon naturally left open a door for the toleration of the faith to which he was already attached, or toward which he was tending. V. [Sidenote: Calvert's conversion.] Calvert's conversion was almost inevitable. He favored the project for the Spanish match, and he was, like some other courtiers, under the influence of Gondomar, a consummate master of intrigue. He was bound by ties of friendship, and later by the marriage of his son, to Lord Arundel of Wardour, a Catholic, and the constitution of his mind and all the habits of a lifetime made him a lover of authority in church and state. Under favoring circumstances such a man becomes a Roman Catholic by gravitation and natural affinity. [Sidenote: Petition in Rushworth, Part I, i, 141. Compare Neal, Part II, c. ii.] There was a Catholic revival in England at this time, especially among the courtiers and upper classes. In 1623 there was a large influx to England of priests and Jesuits. English Romanists flocked to the vicinage of London, and resorted in great numbers to the mass in the houses of foreign ambassadors; and in many English country houses the mass was openly celebrated in defiance of law. The Commons, in alarm, adopted what James fitly called "a stinging petition against the papists." VI. [Sidenote: His resignation.] [Sidenote: 1624.] [Sidenote: 1625.] [Sidenote: Note 6.]