Sir Arthur Aston, Kt.

From his entry in the Heritage of Newfoundland and Labrador page:

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/proprietary-arthur-asto...

Aston, Sir Arthur

Governor of Province of Avalon, c. 1625-1627

Around 1625, Sir Arthur Aston was named to the post of governor of the Province of Avalon by George Calvert. Little information exists on the life and government of Aston; in fact, there is much debate as to precisely when he arrived at Ferryland. One researcher, who says that Aston was a devout Catholic and had been recommended by a Catholic priest, puts the year of his arrival at 1625. Other researchers claim that Aston came to Newfoundland in 1626 or even as late as 1627. It is possible that Aston returned to England in the spring of 1627 and joined the Duke of Buckingham's company in France, only to die there the same year.

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From the British Civil Wars (BCW) Project entry on his son, Sir Arthur Aston, Kt., of Cheshire:

http://bcw-project.org/biography/sir-arthur-aston

The Astons were a Catholic family originally from Cheshire. Arthur Aston was the younger son of Sir Arthur Aston of Fulham in Middlesex, a soldier who was killed on the Ile de Rhé expedition of 1627.

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From the Wikipedia entry for George Calvert, First Lord Baltimore, as it relates to Sir Arthur Aston, Proprietary Governor of Avalon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Calvert,_1st_Baron_Baltimore

After resigning the Royal secretariat of state in 1625, the new Baron Baltimore made clear his intention to visit the colony: "I intend shortly," he wrote in March, "God willing, a journey for Newfoundland to visit a plantation which I began there some few years since."[61] His plans were disrupted by the death of King James I, and by the crackdown on Catholics with which King Charles I began his reign in order to appease his opponents. The new King required all privy councillors to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance; and since Baltimore, as a Catholic, had to refuse, he was obliged to step down from that cherished office.[62] Given the new religious and political climate, and perhaps also to escape a serious outbreak of plague in England, Baltimore moved to his estates in Ireland. His expedition to Newfoundland had set sail without him in late May 1625 under Sir Arthur Aston, who became the new provincial Governor of Avalon.[63]

From the time of his conversion in 1625 onwards, Baltimore took care to cater for the religious needs of his colonists, both Catholic and Protestant. He had asked Simon Stock to provide priests for the 1625 expedition,[65] but Stock's recruits arrived in England after Aston had sailed. Stock's own ambitions for the colony appear to have exceeded Baltimore's: in letters to De Propaganda Fide in Rome, Stock claimed the Newfoundland settlement could act as a springboard for the conversion of natives not only in the New World but also in China, the latter via a passage he believed existed from the east coast to the Pacific Ocean.[66]

Baltimore was determined to visit his colony in person. In May 1626, he wrote to Wentworth: “Newfoundland ... imports me more than in Curiosity only to see; for I must either go and settle it in a better Order than it is, or else give it over, and lose all the Charges I have been at hitherto for other Men to build their Fortunes upon. And I had rather be esteemed a Fool for some by the Hazard of one Month's journey, than to prove myself one certainly for six Years by past, if the Business be now lost for some want of a little Pains and Care.[67]"

Aston's return to England in late 1626,[68] along with all the Catholic settlers, failed to deter Baltimore, who finally sailed for Newfoundland in 1627, arriving on July 23 and staying only two months before returning to England.[69] He had taken both Protestant and Catholic settlers with him, as well as two secular priests, Thomas Longville and Anthony Pole (also known as Smith), the latter remaining behind in the colony when Baltimore departed for England. The land Baltimore had seen was by no means the paradise described by some early settlers, being only marginally productive;[70] as the summer climate was deceptively mild, his brief visit gave Baltimore no reason to alter his plans for the colony.

In 1628, he sailed again for Newfoundland, this time with his second wife Jane, most of his children,[71] and 40 more settlers, to officially take over as Proprietary Governor of Avalon.[72] He and his family moved into the house at Ferryland built by Wynne, a sizeable structure for the time, by colonial standards, and the only one in the settlement large enough to accommodate religious services for the community.[73]

Footnotes:

• 61. Krugler, John D. (2004). English and Catholic: the Lords Baltimore in the Seventeenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-7963-9, pp. 75 and 84.
• 62. Charles accepted Baltimore's refusal with good grace. "His ability to manipulate the government for his own purposes over the next few years belies any suggestion that the government hounded him out of England." Krugler, pp. 85-7.
• 63. Krugler, pp. 85–86. Aston was granted a royal licence for the voyage in return for bringing back some hawks and elks for the king.
• 65 Stock wrote to his superiors that the "Avalon gentleman", as he cautiously called Baltimore, "desires to take with him two or three brethren to sow the Sacred Faith in that land." Krugler, p. 89.
• 66. Codignola, Luca (1988). The Coldest Harbour of the Land: Simon Stock and Lord Baltimore's Colony in Newfoundland, 1621–1649, Translated by Anita Weston. Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-0540-7, p. 25; Stock conceived the Avalon colony as a base for conversion, lest the natives "become pernicious heretics" under the influence of Protestant settlers. Krugler, p. 89.
• 67. Codignola, p. 43.
• 68. Aston died the following year in the siege of Île de Ré, opposite La Rochelle, in the service of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. Codignola, p. 42.
• 69. Browne, William Hand (1890). George Calvert and Cecil Calvert: Barons Baltimore of Baltimore. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, p. 18.
• 70. Browne, pp. 18–.19.
• 71. He left his eldest son, Cecil, at home to supervise his lands and his affairs. Krugler, p. 95.
• 72. Browne, p. 19; Fiske, John (1897). Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 261.
• 73. The building was a two-storey longhouse, fifteen by forty-four feet, probably of stone, partly roofed with boards and partly with "sedge, flagges, and rushes"; it had a stone kitchen and chimney, a parlour, a two-room storehouse, a smithy, saltworks, brewhouse, henhouse, and tenements. Pope, Peter Edward (2004). Fish into Wine: the Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century. Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-2910-2, p. 128.

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From The Coldest Harbour of the Land: Simon Stock and Lord Baltimore’s Colony in Newfoundland, 1621-1649, by Luca Codignola (translated from Italian by Anita Weston, published in Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988):

https://books.google.pl/books?id=8Kr9FUImJWsC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=S...

Prior to leaving London for good, however, Lord Baltimore managed to settle the question of a successor to his former governor. Wynne had returned some months previously, [Chapter 3: 32] and at first Lord Baltimore had thought of taking his place himself. Instead, an agreement of sorts was reached with Sir Arthur Aston. By 5/15 April 1625, Aston’s permit to depart for Avalon was available. [33] Apparently, Aston’s condition for accepting the post as governor and spending the 1625-26 winter there was that he should first visit the island in person.[34] His departure for Ferryland was simultaneous with Lord Baltimore’s for Ireland between 24 and 31 May 1625. [35]

Until that moment, Sir Arthur Aston (d. 1627), father of the more famous Sir Arthur Aston (d. 1649), general to Charles I, had led the life of an adventurer. Knighted on 15 (Julian calendar)/25 (Gregorian calendar) July 1604 [36], he had obtained licence on 23 August/2 September 1604 to “use and sell certain woods used in dyeing.” [37] On 23 April/3 May 1621, he had assumed command of 8,000 English volunteers enlisted by the Polish Ambassador, Osalinskie, Count Palatine of Sindomerskie (more properly, Krzysztof Ossoliński, Voivode of Sandomierz), to fight against the Grand Duke Michail Fyodorovich Romanov. [38] At the request of the Russian ambassador, Isaac Sinoinwich Pogozue, on 29 March/8 April 1622 [40], he was forbidden to take arms against Romanov [41], and by 16/26 June he had already been set free. [42] Nothing more is heard of him until the Avalon assignment. [43]

Lord Baltimore and Aston obviously grew to be on excellent terms, and Stock, who seems never to have met Aston before March 1625 [44], spent considerable time in the company of Avalon’s future governor. By 19 May Stock was already referring to him as “a Catholic knight and dear friend, who for many years has fought in the wars against Turks and infidels.” [45] Aston too, Stock underlined in his letter to Propoganda, shred their hope that the Congregation would favour them by sending missionaries for the new colony. [46]

Although Lord Baltimore had decided not to go to Newfoundland himself, the Avalon venture seemed to be taking concrete shape with Aston’s departure. Once he had founded the colony, Wynne’s administration passed off uneventfully, without any undue interest paid to it. The relation now established between the colony and the Catholic religion and Rome, however, gave this project an importance with distinguished it from others of a similar kind. This, at least, was Stock’s opinion, and the idea of a Catholic colony rapidly began to replace the far less appealing project of the novitiate in Saint-Omer, already fraught with difficulties, in his affections…

… Propaganda immediately contacted the Discalced Carmelites. Their reply was sufficiently satisfactory for the Congregation to inform Stock as soon as 5 July 1625 of certain “labourers for Avalon,” whose arrival in London was imminent, if they had not already joined Stock. Expressing “disgust” with the “great diligence with which the English sought to pervert the gentiles of those parts of North America,” Propaganda advised Stock that should the new missionaries arrive too late to join the Avalon expedition, “he should not miss any extraordinary occasion that might present itself for their departure” and send them “thither to bear fruits.” [74] As we shall see further on, two confreres of Stock’s, Bede of the Blessed Sacrament and Elias of Jesus, did appear in London during the summer of 1625. Aston had already left for Newfoundland some weeks previously, but even more to the point, neither Bede nor Elias had the least intention of going to America; they were destined for the English mission…

…One certain fact is that Aston’s departure for Newfoundland at the end of May 1625 finally concluded the organizational phase of the project and led to its realization. With Lord Baltimore’s conversion and his friendship with Stock, one of the many colonial ventures had become unique because of its religious implications. In addition, there now existed in Rome and audience which was eagerly awaiting news of the colony and the settlers’ impressions of that first summer.

The whole summer of 1625 passed without further correspondence between Simon Stock and the Sacred Congregation “de Propaganda Fide”. [Chapter 4: 1] George Calvert, Baron Baltimore, was in Ireland; Sir Arthur Aston, in Newfoundland, having replaced Edward Wynne as governor of Avalon. The return of “a number of those Catholics,” [2] that is, some of those who had accompanied Aston to Avalon at the end of May, was expected by October 1625. Before then, it was not possible to have any information whatsoever about the outcome of the expedition and the settlers’ first impressions…

…At the same time as it received the extract of Bede’s report on North America in December 1625, Propaganda also had a further letter from Stock. With so many difficulties and disappointments on all sides, hope was at least forthcoming from the source itself, namely, Ferryland. Via someone returning from Newfoundland, and in October (as foreseen), [61] Stock had received a letter from Aston, probably addressed to Stock himself.[62] “[T]his knight, our dear friend,” as Stock proudly defines him, sent “marvelous reports of the island, and of the wonderful abundance of fish,” and was so satisfied with everything he had seen that he had no hesitation remaining in Avalon for the winter, accepting the post of governor which Stock claimed to have procured for him.[63] Aston’s opinion of the natives was equally favourable – idolaters all, but “of a benign disposition,” harmless to foreigners and, in any case, very few.[64]

This apparent success of the Aston’s expedition served only to render more exasperating the disinterest and apathy of the order’s superiors. While Rome lost precious time, Stock argued, its Protestant enemies went from strength to strength. In Virginia, for example, they had founded a college “to infest America with their heresy.” [65] The inhabitants of Avalon would soon “all… become pernicious heretics,” Stock insisted, while many of “our Catholic friends,” would settle there if only there were sufficient “members of the clergy to accompany them.” [66]

…Meanwhile, while Rome discussed the matter, Lord Baltimore’s colony in Ferryland was passing its first and last winter under the guidance of Aston. [71]

To Simon Stock, the beginning of 1626 appeared particularly difficult. After Sir Arthur Aston’s letter of October 1625, [Chapter 5: 1] nothing more had been heard of the Avalon colony, while George Calvert, Baron Baltimore, was still living in Ireland. The missionaries destined for the colony still had not left, and indeed, they showed no inclination to do so, either that year or the next. The whole project already seemed an illusion. What was worse, without the help of the Sacred Congregation “de Propaganda Fide,” the English mission itself, under whose jurisdiction Avalon came and on which the Avalon project depended for recruiting missionaries and funds, seemed more a mission “of Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin” than of the “Sacred Holy Roman Church.” The English authorities had again begun to persecute Catholics with renewed energy. Several priests had been imprisoned, including two of Stock’s confreres, Bede of the Blessed Sacrament and Elias of Jesus, while Stock himself might have followed suit, “had not Our Lord blinded the police who had surrounded me to capture me.” For the sake of his Roman protectors, or possibly recalling experiences in Rome, Stock compared the danger in which the English Catholics found themselves to that in which “the bandits and malefactors of Rome” lived.[2]

(Footnotes not available)