William Penn   By: George Hodges (1856-1919)

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end.

The Riverside Biographical Series

ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES GENERAL GRANT. ( In preparation ) LEWIS AND CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON. ( In preparation )

Each about 100 pages, 16mo, with photogravure portrait, 75 cents; School Edition , 50 cents, net

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK

The Riverside Biographical Series

NUMBER 6

WILLIAM PENN

BY

GEORGE HODGES

[Illustration:]

WILLIAM PENN

BY

GEORGE HODGES

[Illustration]

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street Chicago: 378 388 Wabash Avenue

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY GEORGE HODGES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. A PURITAN BOYHOOD: WANSTEAD CHURCH AND CHIGWELL SCHOOL 1

II. AT OXFORD: INFLUENCE OF THOMAS LOE 8

III. IN FRANCE AND IRELAND: THE WORLD AND THE OTHER WORLD 22

IV. PENN BECOMES A QUAKER: PERSECUTION AND CONTROVERSY 33

V. THE BEGINNING OF PENN'S POLITICAL LIFE: THE HOLY EXPERIMENT 53

VI. THE SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA: PENN'S FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE 68

VII. AT THE COURT OF JAMES THE SECOND, AND "IN RETIREMENT" 93

VIII. PENN'S SECOND VISIT TO THE PROVINCE: CLOSING YEARS 113

WILLIAM PENN

I

A PURITAN BOYHOOD: WANSTEAD CHURCH AND CHIGWELL SCHOOL

The mother of William Penn came from Rotterdam, in Holland. She was the daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of that city. The lively Mr. Pepys, who met her in 1664, when William was twenty years of age, describes her as a "fat, short, old Dutchwoman," and says that she was "mighty homely." He records a tattling neighbor's gossip that she was not a good housekeeper. He credits her, however, with having more wit and discretion than her husband, and liked her better as his acquaintance with her progressed. That she was of a cheerful disposition is evidenced by many passages of Pepys's Diary. That is all we know about her.

William's father was an ambitious, successful, and important person. He was twenty two years old, and already a captain in the navy, when he married Margaret Jasper. The year after his marriage he was made rear admiral of Ireland; two years after that, admiral of the Straits; in four years more, vice admiral of England; and the next year, a "general of the sea" in the Dutch war. This was in Cromwell's time, when the naval strength of England was being mightily increased. A young man of energy and ability, acquainted with the sea, was easily in the line of promotion.

The family was ancient and respectable. Penn's father, however, began life with little money or education, and few social advantages. Lord Clarendon observed of him that he "had a great mind to appear better bred, and to speak like a gentleman," implying that he found some difficulty in so doing. Clarendon said, also, that he "had many good words which he used at adventure."

The Penns lived on Tower Hill, in the Parish of St. Catherine's, in a court adjoining London Wall. There they resided in "two chambers, one above another," and fared frugally. There William was born on the 14th of October, 1644.