Penn, WILLIAM, the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania, was the son of Admiral William Penn, and was born at London, 14th October 1644. His early years were spent partly in Essex and partly in Ireland, where his father had several estates, the gift of Cromwell. Penn studied at Christ Church, Oxford, and while there was converted to Quakerism by the preaching of a disciple of George Fox, named Thomas Loe. His enthusiasm for his new faith assumed a pugnacious form. Not only did he object personally to attend the services of the Church of England, and to wear the surplice of a student—both of which he considered eminently papistical—but, along with some companions who had also become Quakers, he attacked several of his fellow-students, and tore the obnoxious robes from their backs. For this unseemly procedure Penn was expelled from the university. His father was so excessively annoyed at his conduct that he gave him a thrashing, and turned him out of doors; but he soon afterwards relented, and sent his son to travel on the Continent, in the hope that change of scene and the gaiety of French life would alter the bent of his mind. They failed, however, to effect this, but the youth certainly acquired a grace and suavity of address that he did not before possess. In 1666 the admiral sent him to Ireland to look after his estates in the county of Cork, which Penn did, to his father's complete satisfaction; for in matters of business he was as practical an Englishman as in religion he was an out-and-out mystic. In the city of Cork, however, he again fell in with Thomas Loe, and for attending a Quaker meeting was, along with others, imprisoned by the mayor, but was immediately afterwards released on appealing to the lord president of the Council of Munster, who was personally acquainted with him. On his return to England, Penn and his father again quarrelled, because the 'conscience' of the former would not allow him to take off his hat to anybody—not even to the king, the Duke of York, or the admiral himself. Penn was again turned out of doors by his perhaps testy, but assuredly provoked parent. The mother, however, stepped in, and smoothed matters so far that Penn was allowed to return home, and the admiral even exerted his influence with the government to wink at his son's attendance at the illegal conventicles of the Quakers, which nothing would induce him to give up. In 1668, however, he was thrown into the Tower, on account of a publication entitled The Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which he attacked the ordinary doctrines of the Trinity, God's 'satisfaction' in the death of Christ, and justification by the imputation of Christ's righteousness. While in prison he wrote the most famous and popular of his books, No Cross, no Crown, and Innocency with her Open Face, a vindication of himself that contributed to his liberation, which was obtained through the interference of the Duke of York. In September 1670 Admiral Penn died, leaving his son an estate of £1500 a year, together with claims upon government for £16,000. In 1671 the upright but incorrigible sectary was again committed to the Tower for preaching; the Conventicle Act did not touch the case, but, as he refused to take the oath of allegiance, he was sent to Newgate for six months. Here he wrote four treatises; one of them, entitled The Great Cause of Liberty of Conscience, is an admirable defence of the doctrine of toleration. After regaining his liberty he visited Holland and Germany for the advancement of Quakerism. The Princess-Palatine Elizabeth, the granddaughter of James I., showed him particular favour. On his return he married, in the beginning of 1672, Gulielma Maria Springett, daughter of Sir William Springett, and for some years thereafter continued to propagate, by preaching and writing, the doctrines of his sect.
Circumstances having turned his attention to the New World, he in 1681 obtained from the crown, in lieu of his monetary claim upon it, a grant of territory in North America. Penn wanted to call it Sylvania, on account of its forests, but the king (Charles II.) insisted on the prefix Penn in honour of his father. His great desire was to establish a home for his co-religionists in the distant West, where they might preach and practise their convictions in unmolested peace. Penn, with several friends, sailed for the Delaware in September 1682, was well received by the settlers, and in October held his famous interview with the Indian tribes, under a large elm-tree at Shackamaxon, afterwards Kensington, and now a part of Philadelphia. He planned and named the city of Philadelphia, and for two years governed the colony wisely and well, but on strictly Puritan principles. Not only Quakers, but persecuted members of other religious sects sought refuge in his new colony, where from the first the principle of toleration was established by law.
Towards the end of the reign of Charles II. Penn returned to England to exert himself in favour of his persecuted brethren at home. His influence with James II.—an old friend of his father's—was so great that many people have never felt quite satisfied about the nature of their relations. The suspicion, however, that Penn allowed himself to be used as a tool by the court is not justified by any known facts, and Macaulay—who with an ungracious animosity has urged the view of his complicity in some of the disgraceful incidents that followed Monmouth's rebellion—has been convicted of haste and inaccuracy in several important particulars. At any rate, his exertions in favour of the Quakers were so far successful that in 1686 a proclamation was issued to release all persons imprisoned on account of their religious opinions, and more than 1200 Quakers were set free. In the April following James issued an edict for the repeal of all religious tests and penalties, but the mass of Non-conformists mistrusted his sincerity, and refused to avail themselves of it. After the accession of the Prince of Orange as William III. Penn was twice accused of treason, and of corresponding with the exiled monarch, but was acquitted. In 1690 he was charged with conspiracy, but was not arrested. Nevertheless, in the following year, the charge was renewed. Nothing appears to have been done for some time, but Penn at last, through the kindly offices of his friends, Locke, Tillotson, and others, had the matter thoroughly investigated, and he was finally and honourably acquitted in 1693. In 1692 he had been deprived of his government, but it was restored to him in 1694. In the latter year his wife died, and Penn published a memoir testifying to her great virtues; but in less than two years he married again, his second wife being Hannah Callowhill, of Bristol, a Quaker lady. In 1699 he paid a second visit to the New World, where Pennsylvania required his presence to restore peace and order after the arbitrary behaviour of his deputy. His stay, which lasted two years, was marked by many useful measures, and by efforts to ameliorate the condition of both the Indians and Negroes. He departed for England towards the end of 1701, leaving the management of his affairs to an agent named Ford, whose villainy virtually ruined Penn. When the rogue died he left false claims against his master, which Penn refused to pay, allowing himself to be thrown into the Fleet in 1708. His friends afterwards procured his release, but not till his constitution was fatally impaired; for the last five years of his life his memory and understanding were greatly weakened. He died at Ruscombe, in Berkshire, July 30, 1718. The proprietary claims of his descendants were bought up by a pension of £4000, which in 1884 was commuted (see PENSIONS).
See Macaulay's History of England, and J. Paget's Inquiry into the Evidence of the Charges brought by Lord Macaulay against William Penn (1858); the Life prefixed to his collected works (2 vols. 1726), and to later issues of 'select works;' and Lives by Clarkson (1849), Hepworth Dixon (new ed. 1856), Robert J. Burdette (New York, 1882), and Stoughton (new ed. 1883).