Multiple Monarchy and the Kent Island Controversy: A Scottish Licence, Chesapeake Rivalries and the London Business World

Abstract

Kent Island, located in Chesapeake Bay, was the subject of fierce debate and competition in the 1630s. Historians typically present the conflict in binary terms relating to its status as either part of one English colony or another; namely, was Kent Island part of the Virginia colony or was it part of the Maryland colony? There was, however, a third interpretation – that Kent Island was not part of an English colony at all but, rather, an independent Scottish trading outpost. This article examines the basis for this alternative interpretation. It was a pivotal issue in the contemporary debate as the initial European occupation of the island was predicated on the rights conveyed in a royal licence granted under the Scottish privy signet. Taking that grant as its starting point, the article analyses the ways in which the 1603 union of the crowns affected colonisation stemming from the British Isles under the Stuart monarchs. The Kent Island controversy is one example of the ‘Scottish complication’ that was present in many colonial endeavours traditionally thought of as solely English. 1