PENN BECOMES A MAN OF WEALTH
Admiral Penn had managed to accumulate a very considerable fortune, and
as a result William, the eldest son, became a rich man. His family was a
prominent one, he had many influential friends, and now had plenty of
money; so it was thought that he would naturally become a cavalier and
gentleman of fashion. He soon made it clear, however, that he meant to
retain the simple way of living adopted by the Quakers. Friends of his
own age made fun of him, saying it was preposterous that a man of his
means and abilities should spend his time with such dull people as those
of the new religion. Sir John Robinson, the Lieutenant of the Tower of
London, said to him, "I vow, Mr. Penn, I am sorry for you; you are an
ingenious gentleman, all the world must allow you and do allow you that,
and you have a plentiful estate. Why should you render yourself unhappy
by associating with such a simple people?"
"I confess," frankly answered Penn, "I have made it my choice to
relinquish the company of those that are ingeniously wicked, to converse
with those that are more honestly simple."
In those days men challenged each other to arguments over their
religions much as they might have challenged each other to a duel. Penn
enjoyed defending the Quaker cause in public. A Baptist preacher by the
name of Ives denounced Penn and the Quakers in a sermon, and Penn sent
him a challenge to argue the question in public.
Ives did not appear at the meeting, but his brother took his place, and,
according to the rules of such arguments, had to speak first. When he
had finished his argument, he, with some friends, left the hall, hoping
to draw so many people away with him that few would be left to listen to
his opponent. But the audience stayed to hear Penn, and he spoke so
eloquently that he won the house over to his side, and cost Ives the
support of many of his followers. The young Quaker was proving as
convincing a speaker as he had already shown himself to be a vigorous
writer. He was fast becoming a power in the new sect.
He soon found a bigger man than Ives to argue with, for as he traveled
through Oxfordshire preaching the Quaker cause he came to the
University of Oxford, where he had been a student, and learned that the
young men there who were interested in Quakerism were treated worse than
ever. The Vice Chancellor of Oxford thought that the Quakers might
become a dangerous political party, and was doing all in his power to
abolish the new religion. Penn wrote him a letter in which, with fiery
ardor, he denounced the Vice Chancellor for his persecution of Quaker
students, and followed it up with other broadsides of attack on all who
held similar views. He was a militant character, and when he argued
before a public meeting, or wrote a letter that was to be read by his
opponents, he never hesitated to express himself as strongly as he knew
how. So in his letter to the Vice Chancellor he gave himself free rein.
He wrote: "Shall the multiplied oppressions which thou continuest to
heap upon innocent English people for their peaceable religious meetings
pass unregarded by the Eternal God? Dost thou think to escape his fierce
wrath and dreadful vengeance for thy ungodly and illegal persecution of
his poor children? I tell thee, no. Better were it for thee hadst thou
never been born. Poor mushroom, wilt thou war against the Lord, and lift
up thyself in battle against the Almighty? Canst thou frustrate his holy
purposes, and bring his determination to nought? He has decreed to
exalt himself by us, and to propagate his gospel to the ends of the
earth." Fine, spirited words are these, worthy of the valiant courage of
young William Penn!
Penn returned from Oxfordshire to London, and went one day to a meeting
in Wheeler Street. He started to address the meeting, but no sooner had
he begun than a sergeant marched in with a file of soldiers, dragged him
from the platform, and carried him off to the Tower. That evening an
officer and some musketeers marched him from the Tower to Sir John
Robinson, the lieutenant, who asked him many questions, trying to make
it appear that Penn was a dangerous man, who, unless he were checked,
might turn out to be another Cromwell. Sir John, knowing that the
Quakers were opposed to all oaths, called on Penn to swear that he would
never take up arms against the king, and also to take a solemn oath that
he would never try to make any change of government either in church or
state. This oath Penn refused to take, saying that the Quakers were
opposed to all fighting as well as oath-taking. "If I cannot fight
against any man (much less against the king)," said he, "what need I to
take an oath not to do it? Should I swear not to do what is already
against my conscience to do?"
Sir John and the other judges sneered at him, told him that he was
bringing an honorable name to disgrace, and treated his principles with
haughty contempt. Finally Sir John said, "But you do nothing but stir up
the people to sedition; and one of your friends told me that you
preached sedition and meddled with the government."
Penn looked these accusers squarely in the face. "We have the
unhappiness to be misrepresented," he answered, "and I am not the least
concerned therein. Bring me the man that will dare to justify this
accusation to my face, and if I am not able to make it appear that it is
both my practice and all my friends' to instill principles of peace and
moderation (and only war against spiritual wickedness, that all men may
be brought to fear God and work righteousness), I shall contentedly
undergo the severest punishment all your laws can expose me to.
"As for the king, I make this offer, that if any living can make it
appear, directly or indirectly, from the time I have been called a
Quaker (since from thence you date me seditious), I have contrived or
acted anything injurious to his person, or the English government, I
shall submit my person to your utmost cruelties, and esteem them all but
a due recompense. It is hard that I, being innocent, should be reputed
guilty; but the will of God be done. I accept of bad reports as well as
good."
But he could not make Sir John and the other judges believe in his
innocence. "You will be the heading of parties and drawing people after
you," said Sir John, doggedly, and ordered Penn taken to Newgate, the
worst prison in London, where Quakers were herded with criminals of the
lowest types.
People with money could hire rooms for themselves at Newgate and so
avoid some of the discomforts of that vile place, and Penn spoke to his
jailers about having a private room, but they answered him so abusively
and insultingly and charged him so much for a private room that he said
he preferred to share the lot of the poorest criminals. And there this
man of wealth and education bravely stayed for six months, writing a
number of essays and a spirited religious pamphlet. When the authorities
thought the incorrigible young man must surely have learned his lesson
in the wretched prison, they set him free again. He had spent half of
the last three years in jails.
When he was at length liberated, he went abroad for a time, traveling in
Holland and Germany, perhaps because his stay in Newgate had injured his
health, perhaps to give the suspicions concerning him a chance to
disappear. Yet, even on these journeys, whenever Penn found people
showing any interest in the Quaker faith, he stopped and explained it
fully to them. But in most places the new sect was looked upon as
something very strange, and its members were suspected of designs
against the government, so very few were anxious to learn about it.
In the autumn of 1671 Penn returned to England, and, for the first time
in a number of years, lived a quiet life, giving over preaching and
arguing and writing fiery pamphlets. He was twenty-seven years old, and
he had fallen in love with a Quaker girl named Gulielma Maria Springett,
or, as she was called by her friends, Guli Springett. Penn now busied
himself in looking about for a suitable home in which to start
housekeeping.
The father of William Penn's sweetheart was a young Puritan officer, who
had been killed when only twenty-three years old at the siege of Bamber.
Guli was born a few weeks later. Her mother, like many other people at
that time, was neither satisfied with the religion of the Church of
England nor that of the Puritans. Some time after her husband's death
she married Isaac Pennington, and both became Quakers. So Guli was
brought up in the new religion. They all lived quietly in
Buckinghamshire until his neighbors began to complain to the authorities
that Isaac Pennington was "talking Quaker doctrines." Then he was put in
prison, and his wife and Guli wandered from one place to another.
Guli had a considerable fortune, and her charms brought her many
suitors, even though her stepfather had fallen under the displeasure of
the government. But she preferred the young and ardent Quaker who had
himself suffered imprisonment so often in the same good cause; and in
the spring of 1672 Guli and William were married. They made their home
in the country, at Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire. They were comfortably
well-to-do, and as the marriage was a very happy one, it might have been
predicted that William Penn would become a prosperous country squire and
have done with all religious discussions that were so likely to lead to
a cell in the Tower of London.
At about the same time the king, Charles II., issued a proclamation,
which was known as the Declaration of Indulgence, by the terms of which
he did away with all the laws against the Quakers, Presbyterians,
Baptists, Roman Catholics, and all who dissented from the Church of
England. There was only one objection to this decree, and that was that
the king issued it by his own act, and without the approval of
Parliament, which meant that Charles II. had it in mind to try to rule
without Parliament if it could be managed. The Declaration of Indulgence
released over four hundred Quakers from prison, and in view of that
benefit Penn and others were willing to overlook for the time the king's
attempt to rule solely by his own will.
From his home in the country Penn began to make short trips through Kent
and Sussex and Surrey, preaching the Quaker doctrines, a free lance who
served without pay and purely because he loved the work. Occasionally he
took his wife with him on his travels. They went together to Bristol to
welcome the Quaker leader George Fox on his return from America, and
hear from him what progress the new faith was making in the strange new
country across the Atlantic Ocean.
By this time the Quakers had gained so many converts that the other
sects were beginning to be afraid of them, and continually challenged
them to more and more of those strange public debates in which the
speakers did not hesitate to call their opponents harsh names. It was
said of Penn that "he never turned his back in the day of battle," and
he apparently threw himself into these arguments with the same ardor
his ancestors had shown in warfare. Besides taking up the cudgel in
defense of the new creed, he wrote many pamphlets and letters to people
who disapproved of the Quakers. In this way he kept himself very busy
during the two years he lived at his charming country home.
Charles II.'s Declaration of Indulgence proved so unpopular with the
Parliament that the king had soon to withdraw it, and then the old
opposition to all rivals of the Church of England broke out more
violently than ever. George Fox was arrested and kept in prison for a
year. The king offered to give him a pardon, but the Quakers were
unwilling to accept pardons, as that would imply that they had really
done something that was wrong. But Fox was ill, and Penn and some others
went to court and tried to secure the favor of the Duke of York in
behalf of Fox. The duke was very friendly to Penn, as he had been to
Penn's father, but he did nothing to free Fox. However, the Quakers soon
afterward secured the release of their leader by an appeal to the law
courts.
Then a man named Richard Baxter happened to go to Rickmansworth and
found the place "abounding with Quakers," as he put it, "because Mr. W.
Penn, their captain, dwelleth there." Baxter wanted to redeem these
people from their errors and challenged Penn to an argument. They
debated from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon, before a
great crowd, and at the end of that time all present held to their
original views, although each debater claimed the victory. Penn enjoyed
this argument immensely, for he told Baxter he would like to give him a
room in his house, so "that I could visit and get discourse with thee in
much tender love." But Baxter did not accept that invitation, and soon
afterward Mrs. Penn inherited a house and estate at Worminghurst, in
Sussex, so she and her husband moved their home to that place. A little
later Penn, with George Fox and other Quakers, set out on a missionary
visit to Holland and Germany.