The professors in charge of Oxford University did not believe in such meetings, so they turned out of the college those who attended them. When William Penn went home, sent away from Oxford, his father was so angry that he gave his Quaker son a beating and drove him from home. Young Penn would have had to starve or beg in the streets but for his good mother, who sent and helped him secretly. Even after that William was found at a Quaker meeting in London and put in prison for eight months.
William Penn’s father was a great man, a friend of King Charles the First. When that king was put to death, Admiral Penn became the friend of Cromwell, who had fought against the king. After Cromwell died, the Admiral attached himself to King Charles the Second, and to the king’s brother, the Duke of York, who afterward became James the Second. Although these four rulers were different—even bitter enemies to one another—shrewd Admiral Penn managed to keep the favor of them all. He was ambitious also to have his eldest son become the favorite of kings. He allowed William to come home after he was free from prison, in order to send him away to Paris, as he hoped the youth would forget his queer belief in the gay life there. The father asked the son’s friends, who were sons of English noblemen, to influence William while in Paris to do everything that was against the Quaker belief. One day a stranger met young Penn in the street and picked a quarrel with him, drawing his sword and challenging the peace-loving young man to a duel with swords. Penn was forced, much against his will, to fight. He had always been an active youth and fond of sports. While at college he had been very good at fencing. By skilful play he disarmed the quarrelsome fellow and ended the duel without hurting the stranger, as if it were all done in sport. This pleased all who saw the sword-play and it did credit to the heart as well as to the skill of the young Quaker.
When William returned home he was so handsome and had gained so much in courtly manners that his father was thoroughly pleased. But the Great Plague broke out in London then, carrying off nearly seventy thousand people in that city alone. This frightened even the most worldly into leading religious lives, and made William Penn’s conscience trouble him. Repenting of his gay life, he finally joined the Friends for good and all, and became one of their most earnest members and preachers. His father ordered him out of the house and threatened to cast him off utterly.
William was now imprisoned in the London Tower because of something he had written against the Church of England. While in prison he wrote “No Cross, No Crown,” and other works in defense of the Quakers. His father, whose heart was touched by his son’s courage and unselfishness, appealed to the Duke of York, King Charles’ brother, and got William out of the Tower.
Admiral Penn died soon after this, leaving William a rich man. The royal treasury owed him immense sums of money loaned to King Charles and his brother James. But young Penn was again arrested because he was a Friend, and imprisoned in Newgate, where the worst criminals were kept. When he was again set free he began to seek some good place outside of England where he and his Quaker followers could serve God and their fellow-men without being treated like criminals. Learning of a certain region in America, he went to King Charles and asked for it in payment of the large amount of money Charles owed him.
As the king was still unable to pay the great debt in money, he was glad to grant Penn a charter for the vast tract of land. When Penn came before the king and the council to have the state paper signed and sealed, he did not remove his hat, as Quakers think it wrong to show such reverence to any one but God. King Charles allowed Penn to keep his hat on, but removed his own, to the astonishment of all, and said with a smile, “It is the custom at court for only one person to remain covered.”
Penn suggested calling the tract of country they were ceding to him, Sylvania, which meant “forest land”; but the king insisted on naming it Pennsylvania, or Penn-forest. This name was written in the charter, so William Penn had to abide by it, though he thought it vain to have the land named for himself. The religious leader was now happy in having a country where he and his people could live and love God and one another in their own simple way. Sailing across the ocean in his good ship, Welcome, Penn bought the country from its rightful owners, the Indians. He made a solemn treaty with them which was “never sworn to, and never broken.”
No Quaker ever hurt or wronged an Indian, and no Indian ever injured a Friend, though the red savages murdered settlers belonging to other religious faiths. William Penn laid out a town which soon became the largest city in America. For this place he made up a name, Philadelphia, composed of two Greek words meaning “Brother” and “love.”