No. LXVII.
Charles I. was King, when William Penn was born; and, when he died, George I. was on the throne. Penn therefore lived in the reins of nine rulers of the realm—Charles I.—the Cromwells, Oliver and Richard—Charles II.—James II.—William and Mary as joint sovereigns—William alone—Anne—and George I.
He was the son of Admiral, Sir William Penn, and was born on Tower Hill, London, Oct. 4, 1644. The spirit and the flesh strove hard for the mastery, before young William came forth a Quaker, fully developed. He was remarkable at Oxford, for his fine scholarship, and athletic performances.
Penn believed, that the Lord appeared to him, when he was very young. The devil seems to have made him a short visit afterwards, if we may rely upon the testimony of Penn’s biographers. Wood, in his Athenæ, iv. 645, gives this brief account of the Lord’s visit—Penn was “educated in puerile learning, at Chigwell in Essex, where, at eleven years of age, being retired in a chamber alone, he was so suddenly surprised with an inward comfort, and, as he thought, an external glory in the room, that he has, many times, said that, from that time, he had the seal of divinity and immortality, that there was also a God, and that the soul of man was capable of enjoying his divine communications.”
His biographer, Clarkson, says, that Penn, at the age of sixteen, was led to a sense of the corruptions of the established faith, by the preaching of Thomas Loe, a Quaker; and broke off at the chapel, and began to hold prayer meetings. For this he was fined and admonished. It is remarkable, that Wood, though he states, that Penn, after he became a Quaker, in good earnest, was imprisoned, once in Ireland, once in the Tower, and three times in Newgate, does not even allude, in his Athenæ, to the expulsion from Oxford, which is related, by Chalmers, Clarkson, and others.
It seems, that, after he had become impressed, by Loe’s preaching, an order came down from court, that the students should wear surplices. This so irritated Penn, that, instead of letting his yea be yea, and his nay nay—in company with others, says Clarkson, “he fell upon those students, who appeared in surplices, and tore them everywhere over their heads.” On the subject of his conversion, Wood says—“If you’ll believe a satirical pamphlet—‘The history of Will Penn’s conversion from a gentleman to a Quaker,’ printed at London, in 1682—you’ll find, that the reason of his turning Quaker was the loss of his mistress, a delicate young lady, that then lived in Dublin; or, as others say, because he refused to fight a duel.”
For two, good and sufficient reasons, this statement, contained in the “satirical pamphlet,” and referred to by Wood, is unworthy of the slightest credit. In the first place, though Penn met Loe, in Dublin, after the expulsion from Oxford, and became more fully impressed, yet his first meeting with Loe was at Oxford, before the expulsion, and the serious impression, produced by his preaching, led, albeit rather oddly, to the affair of the surplices.
In the second place, the notion, that Penn would put on Quakerism, to avoid a duel, is still more incredible. Nothing could be more unfortunate, than any imputation upon Penn’s courage, moral or physical. We have seen, that he was famous for his athletic exercises. Strange, though it may seem, to such as have contemplated Penn, as the quiet non-combatant, he was an accomplished swordsman, and, upon one occasion, was actually engaged in an affair, which had all the aspect, and all the peril, of the duellium, however it may have lacked the preliminary forms and ceremonies. “During his residence in Paris,” says Chalmers, “he was assaulted in the street, one evening, by a person with a drawn sword, on account of a supposed affront; but among other accomplishments of a gay man, he had become so good a swordsman, as to disarm his antagonist.”
After his expulsion from Oxford, in 1662, he returned home. His father, the Admiral, was greatly provoked, to see his son resorting to the company of religious people, who were, of all, the least likely, in the licentious reign of Charles II., to advance his worldly interest. The old gentleman tried severity, and finally, as Penn himself relates, gave the Quaker neophyte a thrashing, and turned him out of doors.
Ere long, the father got the better of the admiral. He relented: and, probably, supposing there was as little vitality in Paris, for a Quaker, as some of the old philosophers fancied there might be, in a vacuum, for an angel, he sent young William thither, as one of a fashionable travelling party.
After his return, he was admitted of Lincoln’s Inn, and continued there, till the year of the plague, 1665. The following year, his father sent him to Ireland, to take charge of an estate. At Cork, he met Loe once more—attended his meetings, became an unalterable Quaker, preached in conventicles—was committed to prison—released upon application to the Earl of Orrery—and summoned home, by his indignant father. The old Admiral loved his accomplished son, then twenty-three years old—but abhorred his Quakerish airs and manners. In all points, save one—the point of conscience—William was unexceptionably dutiful. At length, the Admiral agreed to compound, on conditions, which seem not to have been very oppressive: in short, he consented to waive all objections, and let William do as he pleased, in regard to his religion, provided he would yield, in one particular—doff his broad brim—take off his hat—in presence of the King, the Duke of York, and his own father, the Admiral. Young William demanded time for consideration. It was granted; and he earnestly sought the Lord, on an empty stomach, as he says himself, with prayer. He finally informed his father, that he could not do it; and, once again, the Admiral, in a paroxysm of wrath, turned the rebellious young Quaker out of doors, broad brim and all.
William Penn now began to figure, as a preacher, at the Quaker meetings. The friends, and the fond mother, ever on hand, in such emergencies, supplied his temporal necessities. Even the old Admiral, becoming satisfied of William’s perfect sincerity, although too proud to tack about, hoisted private signals, for his release, when imprisoned, for attending Quaker meetings; and evidently lay by, ready to bear down, in the event of serious difficulty.
In 1668, Penn’s brim grew broader and broader, and his coat became buttonless behind. He was a writer and a preacher, and a powerful defender of the “cursed and depised” Quakers. The titles of his various works may be found in Clarkson, and in Wood’s Athenæ. They conformed to the fashion of the age, and were, necessarily, quaint and extended. I have room for one only, as a specimen,—the title of his first tract—“Truth exalted, in a short but sure testimony, against all those religious faiths and worships, that have been formed and followed in the darkness of apostacy; and for that glorious light, which is now risen, and shines forth in the life and doctrine of the despised Quakers, as the alone good old way of life and salvation; presented to princes, priests, and people, that they may repent, believe, and obey. By William Penn; whom Divine love constrains, in an holy contempt, to trample on Egypt’s glory, not fearing the King’s wrath, having beheld the majesty of Him, who is invisible.” In this same year 1668, he was imprisoned in the Tower, for publishing his Sandy Foundation Shaken. There he was confined seven months, doing infinitely more mischief, for the cause of lawn sleeves and white frocks, forms, ceremonies, and hat-worship, as he calls it, than if he had been loose. For, then and there, he wrote his most able pamphlets, especially, No Cross no Crown, which gained him great praise, far beyond the pale of Quakerdom. His treatise has been often reprinted, and translated into foreign tongues.
In 1670, his influence was so great, that he obtained an order in Council, for the release of the Quakers then in prison. At a later day, he again assumed the office of St. Peter’s angel, and set three thousand captives free. In 1685, says Mr. Macaulay, “he strongly represented the sufferings of the Quakers to the new King,” &c. “In this way, about fifteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of Roman Catholics regained their liberty.” No wonder he was mistaken for a Papist, by those, who adopt that bastard principle, that charity begins at home, and ends there; whose religious circle forms the exclusive line of demarcation, for the exercise of that celestial principle; and who look, with the eye of a Chinaman, upon all beyond the holy sectarian wall, as outside barbarians. I was delighted and rather surprised, that Mr. Macaulay suffered the statement of this fact to pass, without some ill-natured expression, in regard to Penn—who, I say it reverentially, was less the TOOL of the King, than of Jesus Christ.