Penn, William

Penn, William (1644-1718), English Quaker and the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania. He was the son of Admiral William Penn.

Born October 14, 1644, in London, Penn was educated at Christ Church, University of Oxford. While at Oxford he was converted to Quakerism. In 1666 his father sent him to Ireland to oversee his estates in county Cork. In Ireland his religious convictions brought him into conflict with the authorities, and he was imprisoned. On his return to England, Penn began work on a religious tract, The Sandy Foundation Shaken; the tract was published without a licence, and Penn was jailed in the Tower of London. During his imprisonment he wrote his most famous book, No Cross, No Crown, and Innocency with Her Open Eyes (both 1669), a self-vindication that contributed to his liberation. In 1671 he was sent to Newgate prison for six months. There he wrote four treatises; one of them, The Great Cause of Liberty of Conscience, is a defence of the doctrine of toleration.

In 1681 Penn obtained from the Crown, in payment for a debt owed to his father, a grant of territory in North America. With several friends, he sailed for America in September 1682, and in October he held his famous interview with the Native American tribes. He planned and named the city of Philadelphia, and for two years he governed the colony wisely and well.

Towards the end of the reign of Charles II, Penn returned to England in order to aid persecuted Quakers there. After the accession of William III, Penn was twice accused of treason and of corresponding with the exiled James II, but he was acquitted. In 1699 Penn paid a second visit to Pennsylvania, where his presence was required to restore peace and order after the arbitrary behaviour of his deputy. Penn's accomplishments during this visit included the suppression of piracy, the granting of a charter to Philadelphia, and the issuing of the Charter of Privileges, a guarantee of religious freedom. He departed for England late in 1701, leaving the management of his affairs to an agent whose manipulations virtually ruined him. Hit by a stroke in 1712, Penn died in Buckinghamshire on July 30, 1718.