This thesis examines the religious tensions and anxieties of the seventeenth-century Chesapeake during the decades leading up to and after the Glorious Revolution. In looking at the Chesapeake as a region, I create a comparative between the English colonies of Virginia and Maryland to analyze why political violence in Maryland led to the Protestant Revolution of 1689 while Virginia’s government remained intact. I argue that the governmental structures of the two colonies and the different steps that the leaders of both governments took to try to prevent political violence in their colonies which resulted in a difference in outcomes.