Rob of the Bowl: A Legend of St. Inigoe's

Rob of the Bowl: A Legend of St. Inigoe's takes place in 1681 in St. Mary's, Maryland, which was at the time a Catholic colonial capital. Kennedy conducted extensive research on the period, and framed the story in the context of a conflict between Lord Baltimore, who served as the Catholic Proprietary, and the Protestant settlers coming into power in Jamestown, Virginia. Despite the fact that Lord Baltimore governs with religious tolerance, he receives strict orders from Jamestown to dispense with all Catholics serving him in a political capacity. Against the backdrop of this internal strife, St. Mary's is plagued by a haunted Wizard's Chapel that engenders a steady stream of gossip and fear among the townspeople. In the fashion of Irving, Kennedy instills a gothic sensibility into his story, for the Wizard's Chapel groans and rumbles at night, and spots of blood are rumored to appear regularly on its floors. Ghosts, however, are not to blame: Robert Swale, familiarly known as Rob of the Bowl, orchestrates the Chapel's haunting. An irascible and crippled recluse, Rob teams up with an evil pirate named Richard Cocklescraft to store their smuggled cargo illicitly in the Wizard's Chapel. The two scheme together to "haunt" the Chapel as a means of keeping the locals away from their criminal activity. Cocklescraft manages to disrupt the harmony of St. Mary's as soon as his ship lands ashore. He fails miserably at courting a young maiden above his station named Blanche Warden, the daughter of one of Lord Baltimore's chief officials. After losing a duel over Blanche's honor with the Secretary to Lord Baltimore, Albert Verheyden, Cocklescraft defects to the Protestants and aids them in their uprising against Catholic officials. As Cocklescraft plots his personal revenge against Verhheyden, Rob of the Bowl realizes that he is Verheyden's long-lost father. Order is finally restored to St. Mary's after Rob redeems himself by preventing his former cohort from murdering Verheyden and kidnapping Blanche aboard his ship during the uprising.