PENN HELPS HIS FRIENDS
By this time no one could doubt that William Penn had courage, for it
took considerable bravery to face and endure imprisonment in the Tower
of London as he had done, and this show of courage won admiration even
from his father the Admiral. At this time Sir William was having
troubles of his own. The command of his fleet had been taken from him,
and he was suffering from the gout; altogether he was not in a very
pleasant frame of mind, but he softened sufficiently toward his son to
ask him to go again to Ireland to look after the family property there,
although the request was made through William's devoted mother, and not
directly. When he wrote to his son, he showed that he still rather
doubted William's filial regard, for he said, "If you are ordained to be
another cross to me, God's will be done, and I shall arm myself as best
I can against it."
When William reached Ireland, he found the lot of the Quakers was then
no better than it had been before. Their very virtues--for they were
generally a hard-working and thrifty people--had set many against them.
Indeed, nearly all the Quakers in Cork had been lodged in prison. Even
in prison, however, they managed to carry on their affairs; for, said
Penn, they turned the jail into "a meetinghouse and a workhouse, for
they would not be idle anywhere."
He at once set to work to help these friends of his, and drew up a
statement of the charges against the imprisoned Quakers and a defense of
them, and with the help of some friends took the matter to the Lord
Lieutenant at Dublin, with the result that before long the Quakers in
Cork were given their freedom. Encouraged by this success, he made it
his business to try to free people of his religion whenever he found
them in the grasp of the law.
He managed the family estate in Ireland so well that when he went back
to London in 1670, his father decided to forgive his son all the trouble
he had put him to, and the courtier father and the Quaker son were
completely reconciled. That did not mean, however, that the son had
given up any of his opinions. It happened that at about the same time
the government decided that the new religion was winning too many
converts, and so put into effect a law that made unlawful any meetings
for religious worship other than those held by the Church of England, by
the terms of which law the magistrates were allowed to fine and imprison
offenders without giving them a trial by jury; it also allowed to those
who gave information about such illegal meetings one third of all the
fines that were imposed. Whenever the Quakers held a meeting, therefore,
some enemy was sure to give notice of it, and many Friends were
imprisoned and more were fined, of course to the advantage of meddling
busybodies.
One day in August William went to a Quaker meetinghouse in Gracechurch
Street in London, and happened to find soldiers on guard before the
building. That roused the young man's spirit, and he with some of his
companions decided to hold a "silent meeting" on the sidewalk before the
front doors. Presently Penn felt called upon to speak, but no sooner did
he open his mouth than the soldiers pounced upon him and marched him off
to the mayor.
According to Quaker custom, Penn kept his hat on before the mayor, and
this so maddened that official, that he said the prisoner "should have
his hat pulled off, for all he was Admiral Penn's son." Then he went on
to abuse the Admiral himself, saying that he had starved the sailors of
his fleet, and repeating other stories that were popular among the
Admiral's enemies. He threatened to send young William to Bridewell
Prison, and see that he was soundly whipped! Finally Penn was taken to a
certain jail known as the Black Dog, where he was locked up with a
number of other Quakers and Baptists and Independents, who had all been
holding meetings in despite of the law. From the Black Dog William wrote
to his father. "I am very well," said he, "and have no trouble upon my
spirits, besides my absence from thee, especially at this juncture, but
otherwise I can say, I was never better; and what they have to charge me
with is harmless."
Penn and a man named William Mead were put on trial in the Old Bailey
early in September, 1670, charged with having preached at an unlawful
meeting, thereby causing a great concourse and tumult, to the
disturbance of the king's peace and the great terror of many of his
subjects. The two prisoners went into court with their hats on, but the
officers promptly pulled the hats off. Thereupon the judges ordered the
officers to put the hats again on the prisoners' heads, and began to
question them about their wearing hats in court. This was regarded as
very disrespectful, and could not pass unreproved. Finally the judges
fined each man forty marks for such "contempt of court."
The prisoners were not allowed lawyers to defend them, and the judges
proceeded to make sport of the two Quakers, as if the trial were a form
of bull-baiting. Penn said that he had broken no law, but had only been
worshiping God according to his own conscience. He stood up for his
rights as an Englishman, and evidently impressed the jury with the
justice of his claims, for, in spite of all the efforts of the judges,
the jury would only find him "guilty of speaking" in Gracechurch Street,
and of no crime whatever. The judges sent the jury out again and again,
finally keeping them locked up for two days and nights without beds or
food, but the jury were not to be browbeaten. The judges at last had to
accept the verdict, "not guilty," but in revenge fined each of the
prisoners forty marks and ordered them imprisoned until the fines were
paid, and in addition actually fined the jury for bringing in what they
considered a mock verdict!
Penn and Mead and the jury were then sent to Newgate, where they simply
refused to buy their liberty by paying the unjust fines. From there Penn
wrote to his father: "I intreat thee not to purchase my liberty. They
will repent them of their proceedings. I am now a prisoner notoriously
against law." In another letter he wrote: "Considering I cannot be free,
but upon such terms as strengthening their arbitrary and base
proceedings, I shall rather choose to suffer any hardship.... My present
restraint is so far from being humor, that I would rather perish than
release myself by so indirect a course as to satiate their revengeful,
avaricious appetites."
The question of the right of the judges to fine the jury was finally
brought before the Court of Common Pleas, which decided that the fines
were unlawful, and ordered the jury set at liberty. Penn and Mead,
however, had been fined for wearing their hats in court, and there is no
knowing how long they might have been kept in prison if the Admiral, who
was ill, had not disregarded his son's letters, and paid the fines of
both Penn and Mead, when they were at once set at liberty.
Admiral Penn was very ill, and when his son returned this time from
prison, he was so much concerned for the future of a young man who
seemed to have such a knack for getting into trouble that he sent a
friend to the Duke of York asking that the duke look after William and
try to defend him before King Charles should William continue in his
course of resistance to the laws. Both the duke and the king sent back
their promises of help to the sick Admiral, and both of them kept those
promises when William Penn needed friends later on.
As his gout increased the Admiral began to think that perhaps his son
William had been right after all, and that the court of King Charles II.
was not altogether what it should be. He began to talk almost like a
Puritan, and to condemn many of the nobles, once his boon companions,
for their loose way of living. Father and son were drawn close together
in those last days of the Admiral's illness. Sir William said to his
son, "Three things I commend to you:
"First.--Let nothing in this world tempt you to wrong your conscience;
so you will keep peace at home, which will be a feast to you in the day
of trouble.
"Secondly.--Whatever you design to do, lay it justly and time it
seasonably, for that gives security and despatch.
"Lastly.--Be not troubled at disappointments, for if they may be
recovered, do it; if they cannot, trouble is vain. If you could not have
helped it, be content; there is often peace and profit in submitting to
Providence: for afflictions make wise. If you could have helped it, let
not your trouble exceed instruction for another time.
"These rules will carry you with firmness and comfort through this
inconstant world."
The Admiral died on September 16, 1670, leaving William to look after
his mother and his younger brother Richard. His sister Margaret had
married Antony Lowther, of Maske, in Yorkshire.
[Illustration: PENN'S CREST.]