Death of his Dissolute Son William—Penn’s Last Illness and Mental
Decline—His Death and Will
The younger William Penn meanwhile had gone from bad to worse, to the
bitter disappointment of his father, who after the untimely death of his
first-born had placed all his hopes on this unworthy son. After having
entirely estranged his family by his excesses, he entered the army in
defiance of his father’s principles, but resigned soon after when an
opening offered for election to Parliament. Failing to accomplish this,
however, he abandoned his wife and children and went to the continent,
where he led a life of riotous adventure in the various capitals till
his death in 1720.
It may have been the arrival of some distressing news about this
degenerate son that led to the apoplectic stroke with which Penn was
seized early in the year 1712 and which in his feeble state of health
was a serious matter, although he rallied for a time sufficiently to be
able to occupy himself with colonial affairs. The question of slavery
was much on his mind. He had become more and more convinced of its
inhumanity and sinfulness and had great hopes of securing its abolition,
as the untiring efforts of the German settlers had secured the passage
of a law forbidding the importation of any more slaves.
This first stroke, however, was soon followed by two more which left him
a wreck physically and mentally. The devoted care of his wife and
children helped to avert any immediate danger to his life, but the
brilliant mind was hopelessly shattered. He became like a child, serene
and peaceful fortunately, playing about the house or garden most of the
time with his own young children and those of his son, whom with their
deserted mother he had taken into his own home at Rushcombe.
Occasionally there would be lucid moments when he was able to converse
intelligently, and then the placid smile would vanish from his lips at
the sight of his wife’s care-worn face and the realization of the
burdens she had to bear not only in the management of family affairs,
but also to keep up the extensive correspondence required by colonial
matters.
In this condition Penn lived on for five long years, sometimes able to
recognize his old friends when they came to see him and even exchange a
few intelligible words with them, but toward the end the power both of
speech and memory failed him. On the thirtieth of May, 1718, he passed
away quietly and peacefully at the age of seventy-four, after a life of
ceaseless devotion to the service of God and the welfare of humanity.
In a will made while still in full possession of his mental faculties,
Penn left the following directions: His son William, having already
squandered the money left him by his deceased mother as her family
inheritance, was debarred from any share in the estate, the English
property, yielding at that time an annual revenue of some fifteen
hundred pounds, passing to his children instead. To each of the
grandchildren, as well as his daughter Letty, he bequeathed ten thousand
acres of the best land still unsold in Pennsylvania, and after disposing
of enough more of this land to pay the expenses of his burial, the
remainder was to be divided among his five children by his second wife,
Hannah Callowhill, who was made executor with an annuity of three
hundred pounds. The management of his colonial affairs he entrusted to
his two friends the Earls of Oxford and Pawlett, with orders to dispose
of his right of possession on the most favorable terms possible, either
to the English crown or elsewhere, the proceeds to be invested for the
benefit of these children.
Penn had arranged his worldly affairs with his usual wisdom and
foresight. While it might appear by the terms of the will that he had
shown a preference for his son William’s children by leaving them the
English property with its assured returns, his own receiving only the
doubtful American possessions which of late had yielded a revenue of
little more than five hundred pounds a year, yet as a matter of fact it
was quite the reverse; for during the twenty years of peace and
prosperity that followed the French and Indian war the value of the
colonial property increased enormously. In 1797 the government of
Pennsylvania paid the descendants of William Penn the sum of one hundred
and thirty thousand pounds for their rights of ownership, exclusive of
all personal properties, as well as back-standing payments and rents due
from the sale of lands left them by the founder of the State; while in
England they also received the additional sum of five hundred thousand
pounds voted by Parliament as indemnity for the losses suffered by him.
The body of William Penn was laid to rest beside those of his first wife
and their eldest son in the quiet churchyard of the village of Jordan in
Buckinghamshire. Hundreds came from far and near to pay their last
respects to the noble Quaker, and it needed not the eulogies pronounced
over his grave to proclaim to the world that a great and good man had
passed away.
APPENDIX
The following is a chronological statement of the more important events
in William Penn’s life:
1644 Birth
1658 Death of Oliver Cromwell
1659 Penn enters Oxford
1660 Expulsion from Oxford
1660 Visits Germany
1664 War between England and Holland
1665 Penn in the naval service
1667 Adopts the Quaker faith
1668 Begins preaching
1670 Penn’s arrest
1672 Marriage
1673 Fresh Quaker persecutions
1677 Visits Holland
1681 Royal cession of land to Penn
1682 Penn goes to America
1682 Founding of Philadelphia
1682 Treaty made with the Indians
1683 The new constitution accepted
1684 Penn returns to England
1685 Death of Charles the Second
1688 Dethronement of James
1696 Second marriage
1699 Penn returns to America
1701 Penn goes back to England
1702 Penn imprisoned for debt
1710 Penn retires to private life
1718 Death of William Penn
LIFE STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
_Translated from the German by_
GEORGE P. UPTON
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