William Claiborne was born about 1600 in the county of Kent in England. He was descended from a family which possessed the manor of Cleburne, or Cliburne, in Westmoreland County, England, as early as 1086. He was the daughter of Thomas Clayborn, an alderman and lord mayor from King's Lynn, Norfolk and Sarah Smith, the daughter of a London brewer.
In June 1621 Claiborne was appointed surveyor for the colony of Virginia, where he arrived in the following October. In March 1626 he was appointed secretary of state for the colony and a member of the Council. He continued to serve as secretary until 1637, and again from 1652 to 1660. In April 1642 King Charles appointed him treasurer of the colony. He led an expedition against the Indians in 1629 and again in 1644. In recognition of his services he was granted large tracts of land. With the governor’s license he was active in Indian trade along the shores of the Chesapeake in 1627 and 1628.
He was one of the Virginians who tendered Lord Baltimore the oaths of supremacy and allegiance in 1629. Following him to England, he opposed his application for territory within the limits of the grant of 1609 to the Virginia Company, associated with him a firm of London merchants known as Cloberry & Company, and obtained a commission signed by William Alexander, secretary of state for Scotland, which licensed him to trade for corn, furs, or other commodities in all parts of New England and Nova Scotia where there was not already a patent granted to others for sole trade. With this license, dated May 16, 1631, he returned to Virginia and in August of the same year commenced the establishment of a trading settlement on Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay and within the limits of the grant, the following year, to Lord Baltimore. He purchased the island from the Indians, stocked it with cattle and hogs, planted corn and tobacco, and within a few months the settlement had a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses.
Upon the arrival of the Maryland colonists, in 1634, Claiborne spurned an offer from the proprietor to promote his welfare should he recognize the proprietary jurisdiction over the island. He had previously asked the advice of the Council of Virginia in the matter and that body had answered, “They knew no reason why they should render up the right of the Isle of Kent, which they were bound in duty to maintain. ” Hearing that Claiborne was charged with inciting the Indians against the Maryland colonists, Lord Baltimore, in a letter dated September 4, 1634, instructed the governor to arrest him and reduce the island to submission.
A petty warfare followed, both sides in the meantime petitioning the king for a redress of grievances against the other. Claiborne and his associates contended that the grant to Lord Baltimore embraced only land not cultivated or planted.
In 1635 discord arose between Claiborne and his London associates, and subsequently each blamed the other for failure to overthrow the Maryland charter. In May 1637, Claiborne departed for England for an accounting, and during his absence the governor of Maryland reduced the island to submission. This was in February 1637/38, and in the following month the Assembly passed an act for the attainder of Claiborne. On April 4, 1638, the Commissioners of Plantation decided wholly in favor of Lord Baltimore. “The Isle of Kent, ” they declared, “is wholly within the bounds and limits of Lord Baltimore’s patent and Captain Claiborne’s commission is only a license under the signet of Scotland to trade with Indians where the sole trade had not been formerly granted by the king to any other. ”
During the next decade when anti-Catholic feelings were strong in Maryland, Claiborne, claiming to have a commission from King Charles, together with Richard Ingle, claiming authority from Parliament, incited an insurrection, drove Governor Calvert into Virginia, and held the province from October 1644 to December 1646. In September 1651, Claiborne was appointed a member of a commission of the Puritan Parliament for the government of “the plantations within the Bay of Chesapeake, ” and from 1632 to 1657 the affairs of Maryland were subject to the control of this body. Although Claiborne did not at this time lay hands on Kent Island, one of the last records of his career is a petition, in 1676-1677, to King Charles II for that island.
Clayborne was an Anglican, a Puritan sympathizer, and deeply resentful of the Calverts' Catholicism.
Claiborne was a strong man. In a painting in the State Capitol of Virginia he appears with long flowing hair, high forehead, penetrating eyes, large straight nose, agreeable mouth, pointed mustache, and short narrow beard.
