10 years. Return to England In 1698 Calvert was able to secure a license to return to England, and on 2 January 1699 he married the twenty-year-old Lady Charlotte Lee, daughter of the 1st Earl of Lichfield and Lady Charlotte FitzRoy. Charlotte Fitzroy was the illegitimate daughter of King Charles II. The couple had seven children, all of whom were raised in the Catholic faith, but the union was not a happy one, and the couple separated in 1705. In 1711 Calvert petitioned for a divorce from his wife on the grounds of her "open adultery", but the petition was unsuccessful and the divorce was not granted. Religion and the Restoration of Maryland to Calvert control Benedict Calvert correctly calculated that the chief impediment to the restoration of his family's title to Maryland was the question of religion. Towards the end of 1713 he began to make overtures to Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, informing Oxford of his: inclinations...to embrace the Protestant religion, which I have become hitherto deterred from by the apprehensions that my father would withdraw my sustinance. Accordingly, he converted to Anglicanism in 1713, gambling that this move would win back his family's lost fortune in the New World. Such a drastic move came at a cost, however. Benedict's devoutly Catholic father Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, furious at his son's apostasy, withdrew his son's annual allowance of £450 and ended his support for his grandchildren's education and maintenance. Fortunately Benedict was able to persuade the Crown to grant him an allowance of £300 a year, and Queen Anne even acceded to his nomination of John Hart as governor of the province, on condition that Hart would share with Calvert £500 per annum out of his profits from the office. For Calvert, the political benefits associated with his new religion came quickly. He was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Harwich from 1714 to 1715, though he was not listed in any division lists, and was not an active member. On 1 August 1714 Queen Anne died, leaving the Calverts with a new king and a new court to persuade of the merits of their family's claim to Maryland. Petition to George I On 2 February 1715 Calvert reaffirmed his devotion to the Anglican faith and proclaimed his loyalty to the new Protestant king George I. Two weeks