But soon trouble again overtook him, though only again to place him on a pedestal where his virtues and power would be more manifest, and where his voice would reach a larger audience. Going to the meeting-house in Gracechurch Street, London, he found it closed and guarded by soldiers. However the Friends held their service in the street, and for this W. Penn and W. Meade were indicted under the Conventicle Act. Hepworth Dixon regards this as "perhaps the most important trial that ever took place in England," and speaks of Penn as the great vindicator of the old charters and of trial by jury. He met the browbeating of the city magistrates with spirit and dignity, and encouraged the jury to do the right manfully. After twice returning an evasive verdict, and being locked up for forty-eight hours, the jury finally acquitted the prisoners. The court was greatly annoyed, and vindictively fined the jury for contempt. They refused to pay the fine and were sent to prison. Penn encouraged them to test the legality of this imprisonment, and the highest legal authority in the land decided against it and released the gallant jury.[9] A full account of the whole proceedings was published, and helped materially to encourage resistance to illegal interference with liberty.
[9] In his second trial "Lord Chief Justice Vaughan pronounced his noble vindication of the right of jurors to deliver a free verdict, which by giving independence to juries, made the institution so effectual a protection to the liberty of the subject."—W. E. Forster.
But important as this trial undoubtedly was, the full benefit of it was only secured by long years of bitter sufferings endured by the whole Quaker community. (See [sketch of Fox].) Let us who enjoy the spoils remember gratefully those who fought the battle.
We have spoken of the marked individuality in William Penn's character which led him to continue to wear the court costume after he became a Friend, until his own conscience demanded that he should adopt the Quaker garb. The same individuality led him to diverge from the ordinary type of Friend in another and more important matter. They were bent on fighting out the battle of religious liberty by religious, rather than by political weapons. They might, when on trial, quote a statute or plead a precedent as a sort of argumentum ad hominem, but in political and constitutional affairs, as such, they as a class took no delight. Penn was an exception. He felt a keen interest in the political affairs of his country. He saw that it was a mistake to lose the benefit of the old charters and statutes which secured the liberty of the subject, and he appealed to them on all occasions. This appeal served two purposes. It acknowledged the civil duties of Christians, which some Christians are slow to recognise. It also secured the sympathies of many in their struggles to whom the religious aim was incomprehensible. Both these objects seemed to Penn of the highest importance; they influenced his whole career. In the words of W. E. Forster, "the form of his religion, his feelings as a Quaker, did not seem to him to interfere with the fulfilment of his duties as a citizen. Had it done so, that form would have been changed rather than the work left undone, for he was not a man to make one duty an excuse for shirking another; within his conscience there was no conflict between religion and patriotism; he did not fly from the world, but faced it with true words and true deeds."
Admiral Penn was lying on his death-bed whilst this trial was in progress, and it added greatly to the sufferings of his son, that he could not be with his father at such a time. But on his release he hastened home, and very touching was the final converse between father and son. The high spirit was humbled; the worldly heart had learnt the emptiness of earthly honours. "Son William," he said only a day or two before his death, "I am weary of the world. I would not live my days over again if I could command them with a wish, for the snares of life are more than the fears of death. This troubles me that I have offended a gracious God. The thought of this has followed me to this day. Oh, have a care of sin! It is that which is the sting both of life and death." We can imagine with what feelings the Christian son would hear this tardy confession, and would endeavour to point such a father to the source of his own hopes and consolation. The old sailor was buried with due honours in the fine old church of St. Mary's, Redcliff, Bristol. He left the bulk of his property, some £1500 a year—a great sum in those days—to his eldest son, who thus found himself in spite of the risks he had run for conscience sake, a wealthy man, able to devote money as well as time and strength to the cause of his adoption. The king and his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., had promised the dying man to be guardians to his son—a promise sought by him because he foresaw the many troubles into which that son's conscientious scruples would lead him in such an age. This fact is the key to the relations in which William Penn and the royal brothers often stood to each other—relations otherwise puzzling, but creditable to both sides when thus explained. The Stuarts were faithful to this promise when interest pointed another way. Penn was true to James especially, in spite of faults which greatly tried him; true, even when his throne tottered, and finally fell.
The Penns had an ancient family seat in Buckinghamshire. Not far away at Chalfont lived William Penn's friend, Isaac Pennington, and his wife, and his step-daughter, Gulielma Maria Springett. There also lived Thomas Ellwood, quaintest of Quaker rhymesters, and his great master, Milton. No wonder Penn found the place attractive. But the great attraction soon came to be Guli Springett, beautiful and spirited and accomplished, and yet a true Quakeress. He had met her first at a friend's house where he called when returning to his father's house, to the interview which ended in his expulsion from home. Her father was Sir William Springett, who was killed at the early age of twenty-three, after a chivalrous defence of Arundel Castle for the Parliament. Guli was born a few weeks after his death. After losing her husband, who like most of the best officers of the Parliament was a staunch Puritan as well as a good soldier, Lady Springett passed through a time of great spiritual unrest. At last she found a home amongst the Friends. She afterwards married Isaac Pennington, attracted to him by the spiritual ties of a similar religious experience. They were both examples of the numerous class of those who were almost Quakers before they were aware that such a Society existed. In 1672, William Penn made Guli Springett his wife. The interval after his father's death had been filled up by writing several books, preaching, holding a public discussion with one Jeremy Ives on the universality of the Divine Light, a short visit to Holland, and of course the inevitable imprisonment, six months in Newgate for attending Wheeler Street Meeting.
In his wife he found a true help-meet, both in piety, zeal for Quakerism, and large-minded sympathy with all Christian and patriotic causes. He loved her deeply and tenderly, and found in her love the brightest feature of his chequered life. After his marriage he had a long, sweet rest, and then plunged deep into work again.
He visited the Court, for the first time since his father's death, to plead for George Fox's liberty. It was an errand on which for the next fifteen years he was often to go. He seems to have had a wonderful power of drawing out the best side of the royal brothers; and no nobler sight can be pictured than the courtly Friend, hating the court for its worldliness and sin, but frequenting it to speak bold words of truth or gentle pleas for mercy; feeling that his influence there was a trust not to be neglected, but wielding it with constant watchfulness and wonderful self-control. Meanwhile, writing and preaching were not forgotten. Amongst other engagements, he had, in 1675, a public discussion with good Robert Baxter, of which, unfortunately, very few details are preserved. Perhaps, the most competent and charitable opponent of Friends at this time was Dr. Henry More. The combined wit and seriousness of Penn's pamphlets overcame his dislike to controversy, and led him to go carefully through the discussion which he had had with John Faldo. He was also at this time in communication with George Keith, then, perhaps, the most learned defender of the doctrine of Immediate Revelation. The intercourse led to mutual regard and respect. "If thou happen to see Henry More," writes George Keith to Robert Barclay, when the latter was in London, "remember my dear love to him. Notwithstanding of his mistakes, I would have Friends be very loving and tender to him, as indeed I find a great love to him in my heart. But as for his paper I see no difficulties in it at all to weaken in me anything I have written to him."
Before proceeding to speak of the great work of Penn's life, the founding of Pennsylvania, we must anticipate a little to refer to his manifold labours for his own religious Society. His well-balanced nature found no difficulty in rightly blending the sacred and the secular. Whilst electioneering for Sidney, whilst gathering facts and making business arrangements for New Jersey, or taking interest in the Royal Society, his religious life was still full and fervent. At the time that he was living at Worminghurst, almost overwhelmed with business, we are told that his spirit was so warm and eager, that when the Friends assembled for worship, he could hardly wait to reach his seat before beginning to pour forth the fulness of his soul.
He watched with lively interest the work of organisation which Fox was carrying on in so masterly a fashion. When John Perrott caused a disturbance, by refusing to remove his hat whilst praying in public, or William Rodgers obstructed Fox's path, mistaking discipline for tyranny, none were more ready than he to rally round the trusted leader. In 1677, he joined Fox, Barclay, and others, in a visit to Holland, to organise and consolidate the Society there, and to visit such promising enquirers as the Princess Elizabeth, the Countess de Hornes, and the courtly Van Helmont. He published a full and glowing account of the religious services in which they were engaged, which gives us a vivid picture of the "times of refreshing" which the brotherhood enjoyed in its early days.