Penn, William

Penn, William (1644–1718), Quaker leader, colonial proprietor.Penn was born in London, the son of Admiral William Penn. The family moved briefly to Ireland, where the boy first encountered Quakerism. He entered Oxford when his father was knighted in 1660, but he was dismissed in 1662 for defying its Anglican regulations. He read law at Lincoln's Inn, London, then returned to the family estates in Ireland, where he embraced Quakerism, a reviled and officially persecuted radical sect. Imprisoned four times for publicly affirming his beliefs, Penn won a leadership position in the Society of Friends as the movement turned from martyrdom to political pragmatism. He led the way from zeal to moderation, publishing tracts on religious toleration that aligned him with the emerging Whig party despite his personal acquaintance with Charles II and Charles's brother, the future James II.

These political connections served him well when he turned to America as a place to conduct a “holy experiment” based on his religious and political principles. The charter for Pennsylvania, granted to Penn by Charles in 1681 in payment of a debt owed to Penn's father, named Penn supreme governor. True to his ideals, Penn drafted a Frame of Government guaranteeing liberty of conscience and granting the freemen the right to alter the government. The city of Philadelphia was laid out according to Penn's plan. Penn divided his proprietary energies between the demands of the turbulent provincial legislature for augmented power and the efforts of English officials to expand Crown control. In 1682, Penn negotiated with Delaware chiefs a treaty that assured good relations between settlers and local Indian tribes. A boundary dispute with Maryland drove him back to England in 1684, where he became caught up in the ill‐fated reign of James II. Amid continuing attacks on his executive power, Penn returned to Pennsylvania in 1699. Yielding to the provincial assembly's demands, he granted it preeminence through the Charter of Privileges (1701). Returning to England in discouragement in 1701, he opened negotiations to sell his proprietorship, an action halted by his crippling stroke in 1712. Pennsylvania remained a Penn family possession until the Revolutionary War.
See also Colonial Era; Indian History and Culture: From 1500 to 1800.

Bibliography

Richard S. Dunn and Mary Maples Dunn, eds., The Papers of William Penn, 5 vols., 1981–1986.
Melvin B. Endy , William Penn and Early Quakerism, 1973.
Jean R. Soderlund, ed., William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 1680–1684, 1983.

Joseph E. Illick