Individual Details

Immigration

Brent, Giles, son of Richard Brent, Esq., of Gloucestershire, England, emigrated to Maryland in 1637 and was followed by his brother Fulke and sisters Margaret and Mary. In Maryland he filled the highest offices

Occupation

In Maryland he filled the highest offices, was a burgess in 1639

Event

Giles Brent conveys to Margaret Brent all lands, goods, debts, cattle, and servants for payment of £73 in English money he owes her, plus £40-£60 he owes to his uncle Mr. Richard Reed, 14,000 pounds of tobacco he owes to Mr. William Blunt, 4,000 pounds of tobacco he owes to Mrs. Purfrey of Virginia, plus other smaller debts. In 1642, Giles Brent turned over his 1000-acre Kent Fort Manor (all the land he had taken up) to his sister Margaret in return for payment of debts he owed: £73 English money owed her; £30 to £40 English money owed to his uncle Mr. Richard Reed; and some large tobacco debts in Virginia. (1f.) Nevertheless, it is likelly that Giles did not cease to manage the Kent Fort Manor so long as he lived in Maryland. As a councillor he needed to act and be seen as a manor lord. Not until after Ingle's Rebellion does one find mention that Margaret was ever present on Kent. With the return of proprietary government, she handled the litigation for recovering the extensive damage to a mill and a house and for loss of equipment and cattle, and this took her to the island on occasion. Until he moved to Virginia, Giles acted for himself in seeking damages for loss of his cattle and the burning of his books. (Margaret still held title to the manor, but not to livestock that Giles had acquired since, and not to his personal library.) The Kent County court records show little additional.

Event

appointed by Gov. Calvert as governor, lieutenant general and admiral, in his absence to England. He was a strong royalist.

Marriage

m. (firstly) circa 1650, the Princess Kitomagund dau. of the Emperor of Piscatoway (she was adopted by Margaret BRENT, educated, baptized and given the name of Mary BRENT

Sometime between May 8, 1644 and January 7, 1644[/5], Giles Brent married the little girl. (1g). This event probably occurred before October, 1644, when Leonard Calvert returned from England, where he had gone in the spring of 1643 to confer with his brother, the Lord Baltimore. (Archives 3: 130, 160.) It is hard to believe that, if present, Leonard Calvert would have agreed to the marriage, given subsequent events. During the weeks after his return but before Ingle attacked, the court records show him in bitter conflict with Giles. Indeed, not long before Ingle's raid, the Governor ordered the St. Mary's County sheriff to "arrest the Body of Giles Brent Esq, and keepe him in safe custody in the house of John Cook in St Georges hundred, untill I shall call him to make answer to severall crimes agst the dignity & dominion of the right horle the Lord Proprietary of this Province." On the other hand, a few days later, Brent was sitting as a justice again. (Archives 4: 301 (quote), 302.)

Margaret's agreement to the marriage raises several questions. Why did she let her brother marry an 11 years old, who probably had not yet even reached menarche? To our modern eyes, this age seems extraordinary. However, we do find a handful of marriages of 12-year olds in the early Maryland records, the result of the extraordinarily skewed sex ratio. (Russell R Menard and Lorena S Walsh, "The Demography of Somerset County, Maryland: A Progress Report," Newberry Papers in Family and Community History, 81-2 [1981].)

Event

Richard Ingle was a Protestant ship captain who had been trading for tobacco in Maryland and Virginia since 1642. In 1644, while Governor Leonard Calvert was in England, Ingle had a falling-out with Acting Governor Giles Brent, who inadvisably arrested him briefly for treason against King Charles I, by then literally at war with Parliament. Ingle escaped trial, but early in the following year, he appeared in the Chesapeake armed with letters of marque from Parliament that allowed him to seize ships or goods belonging to supporters of the king. He may not have left England planning a raid on Maryland, but in Virginia he was told that Leonard Calvert, under a commission from King Charles, was going to seize debts owed to Ingle. At that point, if not before, Ingle began to plan an attack on Maryland, perhaps in collaboration with William Claiborne, who had just made an abortive attempt to reclaim Kent Island. In Virginia Ingle picked up a few men willing to participate in his plans and on February 14, 1645, he surprised the settlement at St. Mary's City.

Moved

he removed to Virginia where he patented large tracts of land in Stafford county, including the estates of "Peace" and "Richland."
Giles moved across to the Northern Neck of Virginia in the mid 1640s, settling in the area now known as Brent Point, on the northern side of Aquia Creek where it meets the Potomac River.

Event

Early in 1645, seven years after the Brents' arrival, a Protestant ship captain, Richard Ingle, raided the settlement on the St. Mary's river in the name of the English Parliament, which was carrying on a civil war with Charles I. Ingle took the colony by surprise, burned the Catholic chapel, plundered the homes of Catholic settlers, and returned to England with Giles Brent and the Jesuit priests in chains. Councillor Giles Brent was captured immediately. He was visiting the Dutch ship Looking Glass anchored in the river. Ingle seized the ship as a prize. Some Protestant settlers joined Ingle's men, and there was considerable disorder for a while, but no actual bloodshed, so far as is known. Governor Calvert managed to collect and arm supporters and create some sort of fortification called St. Thomas's Fort, which was probably located on the properties of the Brents. (Giles Brent's town land property and that of his sisters were referred to in some documents as St. Thomas's Lot.) The rebels fortified Calvert's own house near the original St. Mary's Fort, which was evidently too decayed for use. From these two temporary strongholds, both sides foraged in the community for corn and cattle, and Ingle's men, along with Protestant rebels, looted and sometimes burned the homes of leading Catholics. Ingle even sailed to Kent Island and looted and burned Giles Brent's estate there. Governor Calvert fled to Virginia, and the Calverts came close to losing the colony entirely. Most of the Protestants left to become the first settlers in Virginia's Northern Neck, just across the Potomac river. The population of Maryland, perhaps 500-600 people at Ingle's raid, probably dropped to under 100, fewer than had come on Ark and Dove eleven years before.
Ingle sailed for England in late March or early April of 1645, his vessel packed with plunder. He carried with him as prisoners Giles Brent; John Lewger, the Provincial Secretary; and two Jesuit priests, Father Andrew White and Father Thomas Copley. Undoubtedly, he had hoped to carry Leonard Calvert, too, but had not succeeded in capturing him. Evidently Ingle believed that the identity of his prisoners supplied sufficient proofs that he had found Maryland in the hands of a papist tyranny hostile to Parliament, and he expected vindication for his raid. The plundered goods and Looking Glass would be forfeit, making his adventure profitable indeed.

Event

Giles Brent appoints Margaret Brent as his attorney to "demand sue for and recover all debts, goods, and cattell appertayning to mee in Maryland or due from any persons there unto mee with full power to give discharg for the sume received and to the said effects to appoint & constitute any other party to bee my lawfull Attorney....Witness my hand. In the presence of Richard Powers, Mary Brent." Archives 10: 19.


Note: The above was not entered into the Maryland records until June 24, 1650. Since this document was witnessed by Mary Brent,

Giles must have been in Maryland when he created it. Whether he remained there is unclear. He does not appear in the records again until June 19, 1647, after Leonard Calvert's death. The records between November 6 and June 19 are too few to prove Brent's absence. He may have been at his manor at Kent, but actions brought later in the Provincial Court for damages to the Brents' property at Kent suggest deep unrest there without indicating Brent's presence. Archives 4: 399, 417, 454-456. Aleck Loker has suggested to me that Brent went to Piscataway to negotiate territory with his wife's Indian family. Or did he go to Virginia? Why did he not join in Calvert's re-establishment of proprietary authority? There are mysteries here.


7. Nov. 15, 1646. Lord Baltimore grants Leonard Calvert and John Lewger power to demand and receive his rents, debts, and other dues and "to dispose thereof as I shall from time to time direct, & in default of such direction, according to yor best discretions, for my most advantage, until I shall give further orders therein."

Event

"The boundaries of Maryland and Virginia were not yet definitely drawn in 1647 when Giles Brent moved across the river from Maryland to settle on a new plantation which he named 'Peace.' He had emigrated from England, son of an old Somerset family of the catholic persuasion, and had served in various provincial offices for eight years preceding his move. His marriage to Kittamaquad, daughter of the Indian Emperor of Piscataway, incurred the wrath of his cousin, Lord Baltimore, when Brent laid claim to half of Maryland on his wife's behalf."

Event

In 1648 the virginia government formed the county of Northumberland which encompassed the entire Northern Neck within its bounds. three years later Giles Brent took out his first land patent, as did his sisters, Margaret and Mary, who had followed him across the river. The three thus established the first Catholic settlement in the state. They settled on the prominent point later called Marlborough after the Duke of the same name. 'Colonel Brent's' was the last stop for pioneers moving up the river to settle in the wilderness to the north. Margaret Brent was an outstanding woman of her time, intelligent and very much interested in thge workins of laws and government. She was the first woman in the New World to ask for 'voyce and vote allso,' anticipating women's suffrage in this country by one hundred and seventy years. she was referred to in the Maryland courts as 'Margaret Brent, Gent.'"

Event

Provincial Court meets. It is credibly reported that Giles Brent has done or attempted to do "divers things prjudiciall to the right honble the Lo: Propry of this Province and his undoubted right and title thereunto and contrary to the trust reposed in him by his said Lopp." Court appoints George Manners to be His Lordships Attorney "to make diligent inquisicon" into this charge and prosecute him in the Provincial Court. Archives 10: 33.


Note: Nothing further appears in any record.

Event

Giles and Margaret Brent witness the marriage agreement of William Bretton and Temperance Jay.Where this event took place is uncertain. Bretton, who lived on Bretton's Bay in Newtown Hundred, may have crossed the Potomac to see the Brents, but it is more likely that the Brents visited him. All parties were Catholic, and there was a Catholic mission at Newtown.

Event

May 4, 1653. Giles Brent assigned 300 acres upon Quiough (Aquia) River in Northumberland County to his brother, Edmund Brent. Note the Peyton family had large holdings along the Aquia.

Marriage

m. (secondly) circa 1660, Mrs. Frances HARRISON, née WHITGREAVES, by which marriage there was no issue.

Death

d. in 1671, at his estate "Retirement," Westmoreland County, Virginia.
He was Deputy Governor of Maryland; Lieutenant-General of Militia; Lord of Kent Fort Manor; Member of the Council; of the House of Burgesses, etc., and his estates in Maryland and Virginia were enormous;

WILL:
31st Aug., 1671. -- --, --. (Annapolis, Maryland Land Office. Judgements. 28:7)
Will of Giles BRENT, Esq., The Retirement, Staford Co., Va. To dau. Mary FITSHERBERT, personalty. To son Giles and hrs., lands, rights and reversions of lands in either England, Virginia or Maryland, and for lack of such hrs., to hrs. at law of father Richard BRENT, Esq., Lord of the Mannors of Admington and Larke Stoke in Co. of Gloucester, in England. Exs. to pay from personal estate 3000 lbs. for pious uses, and certain legacies to Edward SANDERS and John HOWARD, both of Stafford Co., Va., who are to act for exs. until they shall otherwise order. Residue of personalty to son Giles at age of 21. Exs.: Son Giles and bros. Richard and William, both in England.