Henry Darnall

Colonel Henry Darnall (1645 – 17 June 1711) was a planter, military officer and politician in colonial Maryland. Darnall served as the Proprietary Agent in the colony for Lord Baltimore; he also briefly served as Deputy Governor of Maryland. During the Protestant Revolution of 1689, his proprietarial army was defeated by the Protestant army of John Coode, and he was stripped of his numerous colonial offices as a result. Darnall died in 1711, leaving the bulk of his substantial estates to his son, Henry Darnall II. Early life Henry Darnall was born in England in 1645, the son of Philip Darnall, a London barrister, and Mary Breton, daughter of Sir Henry Breton. Darnall was the first of his family to emigrate to America, and arrived in Maryland by c.1680, when he was granted a tract of 236 acres in what was then Calvert County. In Maryland he became a substantial landholder and slaveholder, and married Eleanor Hatton Brooke (1642–1725), the widow of Thomas Brooke, Sr., who had died in 1676. Career Public offices Darnall was strongly allied to the proprietarial interest of Charles Calvert, who had married Darnall's cousin Mary. This alliance brought Darnall wealth and power, as he rapidly acquired both land and political office from his cousin's accommodating husband. Darnall's colonial appointments included: Chancellor of Maryland from 1683 to 1689; His Lordship's Agent & Receiver General from 1684 to 1711; Rent Roll Keeper, 1689 to 1699; Deputy Governor; and Colonel of the Militia. In 1703, Calvert granted Darnall of land in Prince George's County. Darnall named the estate His Lordship's Kindness in recognition of Calvert's readiness to hand out large swathes of Maryland to his relatives.