Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
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Source: April 1973 Volume 16 Number 2, Pages 24–30

William Penn

George Norman Highley

• William Penn's Prayer for Philadelphia 1684

Page 24

The life of the man we are considering today - William Penn - is a curious mingling of peace and war, of pioneer spirit, and Quaker quietness, a life having much of poverty amid plenty, a mingling with the outcasts of society as well as the elite, a life of friendship with royalty and yet a life of persecution, ingratitude and even prison but through all this one aim followed to a successful conclusion; the right of people to freedom of conscience under government.

This was the accomplishment of William Penn, and it is upon this principle that this Nation was founded.

Penn was the son and name-sake of a military man, to be groomed for a good position in business or military among the elite of England, the circle in which his father traveled.

The manhood of William Penn, the younger, was as bound up in his militant Quakerism as that of William Penn, the Admiral, was in his own militant gentility.

Cromwell placed Penn, Sr., the family friend of the monarchy, in command of a squadron as rear Admiral of the Irish Seas. Penn. Sr. remained loyal to the Navy at a time some were seceding. For this devotion, Admiral Penn was awarded an estate in Ireland, seized as part of a British scheme to resettle Ireland with English Protestants.

When Charles II was reinstated after Cromwell's fall, Penn, Sr. was dispatched to pick up the exiled monarch and return him to England. One of Charles' first legal acts upon reinstatement was to knight the elder Penn as Sir William.

In 1665 young William accompanied his father when the British fleet put to sea, and before victory, was sent back with the dispatches to Charles II. On June 3,1665, a great victory was reported over the Dutch and Admiral Penn was given the credit,

Charles II substituted one Irish estate for another for Admiral Penn; The new estate was "four miles long by two miles broad".

The son was sent there to manage the estate following his expulsion in 1662 at the age of 17 from Oxford.

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It was during his second year at Oxford that Penn re­fused to wear the university gown or attend chapel services

It was in Ireland that young Penn had his portrait painted in armor.

In September, 1667 in Ireland, Thomas Loe, the gifted Quaker, touched William Penn who then and there became a Quaker. Penn was 23 years old. In allying himself with the Friends, Penn was in a large sense turning his back on the elite.

In 1668, Penn published his first book "Truth Exalted", followed quickly by a supplement "The Sandy Foundation Shaken" Approval for the latter publication was not obtained from the Bishop of London, and Penn was sent to the Tower. Realizing that permission from the Bishop was not a ground for imprisonment, the charge was changed to treason, and finally a charge of blasphemy. Penn spent eight months in the Tower when he said:"This jail shall be my grave before I shall budge a jot for I owe my conscience to no mortal man". Then it was that Penn wrote his greatest Quaker book; "No Cross No Crown",

Parliament in 1670 had revived the Conventicle Act, passed in 1664. When William Penn, William Meade and others met August, 1670, to worship in Grace Church Street Meeting house, they found the doors barred by the authorities, so they proceeded to worship outside. During the trial, Penn demanded to be heard, but the Judge denied this request. The Judge demanded a verdict of guilty. The jurors brought in a verdict of guilty of speaking in the street, that is Grace Church Street. This meant acquittal. The jury was locked up with­out food and proper care for comfort. A second night without food, and still the jury refused to bring in the demanded verdict Contempt of court was the decree by the judge. Prisoners and jury were jailed for non-payment of fines.

For almost a year the foreman of the jury continued again and again to bring action for unjust imprisonment. Finally came the decision: no jury could be fined for its verdict.

Penn said "The fairest flower that now grows in the Garden of English liberties", referring to this decision.

Edward Bushnell, the foreman of the jury, is to be credited with perseverence in keeping at the court until the verdict in favor of the jury was rendered.

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How long Penn and Meade would have remained in prison following the Penn-Meade trial of September 1670 we will never know, because Admiral Penn, despite the protest of his son, paid the fines for his son and Meade, and they were released.

The dying Admiral wanted to see his son. In addition the Admiral sent a message to the Duke of York to intercede with the King for his protection. Before the death of Admiral Penn, September 16, 1670, the father and son had a reconciliation.

Just before his marriage, April 4, 1672, to Guilianna Maria Sprigett, Penn spent a few months in Holland and western Germany traveling, preaching and visiting pious folk for whom he felt concerned to carry the Christian message.

In 1677 Penn again journeyed to Germany and Holland visit­ing and strengthening those who embraced Christianity. Benjamin Furly, an English Quaker, long a resident of Holland, served when necessary as a guide and host. Penn was well supplied with books in the Dutch and German languages.

In 1679 Penn campaigned for his old acquaintance Algernon Sidney, a candidate for a seat in Parliment. We are told Sidney was cheated out of his victory which he won on the ballot, and Penn saw the outcome as effecting the fundamental rights of Englishmen to have popular choice. He lost hope of accomplishing popular government and religious toleration in England, and began to look elsewhere "in some vast wilderness".

Penn began more and more to think of the new world as a haven for his persecuted fellow countrymen.

At the same time, he was presenting his claim to the King for the payment of the debt due by the King to his late father. Penn inherited from his father an income of 1500 lbs. per year. He also inherited from his father a debt of 16000 lbs. due by King Charles II to his father; this later was for unpaid salary as an admiral.

On March 4, 1680, William Penn obtained from Charles II the charter for his colony in the new world. A little later "the lower counties", now the State of Delaware, were added. Twenty years later these counties separated.

Having secured the Grant of these acres, now called Pennsylvania, William Penn proceeded to set up the constitution and government. He was no novioe in this matter; New Jersey was then called East Jersey (the nothern part)of which he was once a Trustee, and West Jersey (the southern part) which in 1676 he had had a hand in establishing.

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In the new world Penn intended to prove that complete religious liberty was not only right and Christian, but pro­fitable. He would show how people would flourish under it in agriculture, commerce and the refinements of life Penn said;

"We put the power in the people and let the people decide."

"Constitution" has been defined as the system or body of fundmental rules and principles of a nation, state or body politic that determines the right of the people, Penn called it his "Frame of Government". Religious liberty shall be a cor­ner stone; trial by Jury shall be guaranteed; capital punishment shall be abolished except for treason and murder; forfeiture of property abolished (although not in England until 1879); no oaths required; prisons shall be workhouses; each person entitled to plead his own case; any law which violated the constitu­tion was void; provided for its own alteration. Penn's constitution was the most liberal of any yet drawn up. He was the first to suggest a congress for all the colonies, each repre­sented by two Senators. The Declaration and the Constitution of the U.S contain statements which can only apply to the middle colonies and not at all to New England and to the South. In New England there was theocracy; only Church members could vote and hold office. In the South, the social structure was feudal. Only in the Middle Colonies was there a democracy.

Regarding religion, Penn wrote; "I have ever thought there has been but one true religion in the world, and that is the Spirit of God in the hearts and souls of men."

To obtain settlers and purchasers, Penn traveled with a brochure he had prepared not only in England but in Wales, Ireland and Germany. No other colony had such a mixture of langu­ages, nationalities and religions - Dutch, Swedes, English, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh were among these represented. The religions were Friends, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Luth­erans, Reformed, Mennonites, and Moravians.

On August 30, 1662, at Deal, England, with about 100 passen­gers, Penn set sail for the new land. On October 27, 1682 eight weeks later the Welcome landed at New Castle. Small pox broke out, and about thirty passengers died at sea.

Penn was here 22 months until August 12, 1664. During these months he accomplished much: he set up three counties ­Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks. All Pennsylvania's 67 counties today derive their origin from one of these counties. He called together the Assembly and Council and saw them adopt his frame of government.

Page 28

He laid out the town of Philadel­phia in checker-board square streets. He provided for the central square (City Hall) and four other squares - Washington, Franklin, Logan, and Rittenhouse. He watched the town of Phila­delphia (laid out by Thomas Holme before Penn came) grow from a tiny village to a thriving port town of more than 350 houses and perhaps 2500 inhabitants. He was instrumental in having an act passed, "An Act of Union", which annexed to Pennsylvania what is now the State of Delaware. He sat at many council fires with the Indians, and bought thousands of acres of land from them. He learned their language. "Fellow sons of God", Penn called the Indians. During this first visit he had his now famous treaty with the Indians which is believed to have taken place in the year 1683. Nearly 90 years later, in 1771, Benjamin West painted this same scene of Penn's Treaty. In 1878, the widow of Joseph Harrison,Jr. gave the painting to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

The Proprietor had no sooner arranged with the Indians for their territory than his surveyors were at work, laying out roads, running lines for new purchases, until by 1740 most of the land for some miles from Philadelphia had been parceled out and nearly settled. He made trips to New York and to Maryland to establish relations with his colonial neighbors. Penn frequently sat at Court and charged the jury. He saw Quaker meetings set up in many parts of Pennsylvania, and attended sessions of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, where it was proposed that a General Meeting be established for all American Friends from New England to the Carolinas. For Penn, all seemed to be going well with a government based on Christian principles of people living together in love. During the winter of 1682-1683 in the new world , Penn wrote:

"I like it so well that a plentiful estate and a great acquaintance on the other side have no charms to remove (me); my family being once fixed with me, and if no other thing occur, I am like to be an adopted American."

But, alas, Penn's fervent desire to become an American was never to be realized."

Charles Calvert (3rd. Lord Baltimore) was pressing the claim of Maryland for a northern boundary, north of Philadelphia. Penn felt he must present in England his claim. He appointed three Commissioners to be guardians of his govern­ment- Thomas Lloyd, James Harrison and John Simcock. Then it was he wrote his prayer for Philadelphia as he was about to leave for his native land. On August 12, 1684, Penn embarked on the ketch "Endeavor" to take him back to England.

The next few years (1685-1688) mark the period of Penn's greatest influence at the Court. He was a close friend of James II, who fled England in December, 1688. 1300 Friends, confined for conscience sake, were released from prison.

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In the summer of 1686, Penn made a journey to Holland and Germany. There he spoke much of Pennsylvania. In Holland, Penn saw William, Prince of Orange, whose wife was heir presumptive to the English throne, to try to persuade the Prince to agree that there should not only be freedom of religion in England, but that the Test Laws - which kept both Roman Catholics and disserters out of office and Parliment­should be abolished. William, who believed in freedom of religion as much as Penn, thought that if Catholics got power, they would organize the worst sort of religious despotism. James II was a Catholic King in Protestant England, but Penn remained loyal to him - resulting in much criticism of Penn and putting Penn under a cloud of suspicion. Penn was trying to introduce liberty into England by the assistance of a man (James II) who hated liberty with all his heart. For a time (a year and 10 months) the government of Pennsylvania was taken from Penn and restored by William III in August 1694.

Finally, after the clouds of suspicion had mostly blown away, Penn, on September 9,1699, set sail for Pennsylvania where he landed in Chester on December 1, 1699. He returned to his beloved Pennsbury.

Penn learned that in England a movement was afoot to an­nex the proprietary government to the crown. In the fall of 1701, Penn set sail for England, and the Indians came to "take leave of him" and express their love and deep affection for father Penn. He left Pennsylvania never to return again.

Thus we see Penn spent only four years of his 73 year life span in Pennsylvania.

The closing period of Penn's life, from 1701 to 1716, was difficult and tragic. For a time he suffered imprisonment for debt. The last six years were marked by incapacity.

The author of this article, while in London a few years ago, visited the birth place of Penn, nearly in the shadow of the Tower; All Hollows Barking Church, where Penn was Baptised; Old Baily, the Court; and rode down the Thames to the Naval building. Here he had an opportunity to see the original portrait of Admiral Penn. At Bristol, St. Mary's Rad­oliff Church, the author visited the grave of the elder Penn. Here one can observe the quotation of William Penn the found­er: "Death is but crossing the world as friends do the seas. They live in one another still This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are in the best sense ever present because immortal".

Also in Bristol, at the Bristol Meetinghouse, where Wil­liam Penn married his second wife, Hannah Callowhill, south of London, the author of this article visited Jordans, the grave of William Penn, which lies beneath a plain Friends marker.

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Herbert Hoover, on October 3 , 1932, in Philadelphia, said of William Penn: " His noble contribution to civil and religious liberty is without parallel in the histories of the world ".

Alfred, Lord Tenneson, referring to William Penn wrote: "He was no comet of a season but the fixed light of a dark and graceless age shining on into the present".

Woodrow Wilson said: "I have always thought of William Penn as a Knight of the Spirit setting forth upon a holy quest to do His Father's Will".

WILLIAM PENN'S PRAYER FOR PHILADELPHIA 1684*

... and thou Philadelphia the virgin settlement of this province named before thou wert born, what love, what care, what service and what travail have there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee.

O that thou mayest be kept from evil that would overwhelm thee, that faithful to the God of thy mercies in the life of righteousness, thou mayest be preserved to the end

My soul prays to God for thee that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blest of the Lord and thy people saved by His power.....