William Penn was entered in 1660, as a gentleman commoner, at Christ’s Church, Oxford; but, withdrawing from the national forms of worship, in connection with other students, who like himself had attended the preaching of Thomas Loe, an eminent member of the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, he was punished by fine for nonconformity, and in the succeeding year, for pertinacious adherence to his opinions, was expelled from the college. His father, considering that his singularly sober and serious manner of life tended to prevent his elevation to the honors of Charles’s licentious court, was indignant at his disgrace, and therefore turned him out of doors in 1662, after, as he says, being whipped and beaten.
He was, however, sent by his father to France, and after his return was entered at Lincoln’s Inn as a law-student. He renewed his acquaintance with Loe in Ireland, where he had been sent to manage an estate in 1666, and showed so much partiality to the persecuted sect of Quakers that he was arrested at a meeting in Cork and imprisoned by the authorities, who at last restored him to liberty at the intercession of some influential persons. He returned to England, when he had a violent altercation with his father, who was desirous that he should abandon habits so singular, so offensive to decorum, and so opposed to established forms; and, refusing to appear uncovered before the king and before his father, he was a second time dismissed in disgrace from protection and favor.
In consequence of a controversial dispute in 1668, when he first appeared as a preacher, he was sent to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner for seven months, and shortly after his release he was, on the passing of the Conventicle Act, again sent to prison in Newgate,—from which he was liberated by the interest of his father, who about this time became reconciled to him, and, dying some time after, left him an estate of £1500 per annum. Marrying in 1672, he fixed his residence in Hertfordshire, occupying himself zealously in promoting the cause of the Friends both by preaching and writing.
Soon after his return from Holland, whither he had gone in 1677 to assist at a general meeting of Friends, he petitioned his majesty Charles II. for a grant of land lying north of that already granted to Lord Baltimore, and west of the now Delaware. In consideration of his father’s services, and of a debt of sixteen thousand pounds due the admiral at his decease, the grant was readily made, to which the Duke of York added by cession a neighboring portion of territory on the Delaware to the south of the king’s grant. The patent bore date March 4, 1680-81; and in this instrument the king gave the name of Pennsylvania to the province, in honor of Admiral Sir William Penn.
The day after the charter was granted to Penn, he wrote a letter to Robert Turner, in which he gives the particulars of the naming of his province. The essential parts of this letter we quote:—
“ ... Know that, after many waitings, watchings, solicitings, and disputes in council, this day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with large powers and privileges, by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the king would give it in honor of my father. I chose New Wales, being a pretty hilly country; but Penn being Welsh for a head, as Penmanmoire in Wales, and Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land in England, called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or head woodlands; for I proposed, when the secretary, a Welshman refused to have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it, and though I much opposed it, and went to the king to have it struck out and altered, he said it was past, and would take it upon him; nor could twenty guineas move the under-secretaries to vary the name, for I feared lest it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in the king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with praise.”
The charter constituting William Penn and his heirs true and absolute proprietaries of Pennsylvania, saving to the crown their allegiance and the sovereignty, is preserved in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth at Harrisburg. Being thus constituted absolute proprietor and governor of Pennsylvania, Penn published “A Brief Account of the Province,” proposing terms of settlement to such as might choose to remove thither; in which land was offered to purchasers at forty shillings per hundred acres, with a quit-rent of one shilling per annum. Many persons embraced his offer, and several companies of emigrants sailed to take possession of their new purchase, landing December, 1681, at Chester.
While the colony was thus commenced, Penn remained in England, occupied in forming a government for his people and providing means for its security.
Early in 1682 the proprietary published “The Frame of Government of the Province of Pennsylvania, together with Certain Laws, &c.,” in the preface to which is found a sketch of his sentiments on the form and substance of civil government.
The governor, having completed all his preparations, sailed early in the fall of 1682, in company with about one hundred colonists, mostly Quakers from his own neighborhood, of which number, however, about thirty persons perished by small-pox, which broke out after their departure.