Penn, William

PENN, WILLIAM. - English Quaker, founder of Pennsylvania, b. at Tower Hill (London) on 14 Oct. 1644, d. at Ruscombe (England) on 30 July 1718. Raised under Puritan influence, from his student years at Oxford, where, after Cromwell's death, the Anglican restoration was being carried out, he sympathized with the Quaker movement (v. QUACCHERI).

Expelled from the University (1662) for his religious nonconformity, he was sent to the continent, where he attended the Huguenot Academy of Saumur for some time. Having adhered to Quakerism during a stay in Ireland (1667), he became a pastor and propagator of it upon his return to England. The publication of a pamphlet of religious polemic earned him nine months of imprisonment in the Tower of London (1668-69). In prison he wrote his principal work, No Cross, No Crown, an eloquent defense of his faith and a violent indictment of corrupt morals. After a period of controversies with Presbyterians and Baptists and of struggles against the established authorities, in which he fought strenuously in favor of religious toleration and political liberalism; after numerous arrests and several journeys to the continent for missionary purposes, in 1681 he obtained from the Crown, in payment of a debt inherited from his father, the grant of a vast territory in the New World, which was called Pennsylvania. Having reached America in 1682, he took up residence as governor of the possession and gave it a constitution aimed at making it a Christian "state" according to the principles of Quakerism. Having established there freedom of worship and friendly relations with the neighboring Indian tribes, in 1684 he returned to England, where he took an active part in the political events and religious struggles of the time. His battle in favor of toleration, also toward Catholics, was particularly courageous. Deprived of office and then reinstated in the post of governor of Pennsylvania, he returned to the colony in 1699 and reorganized its government. Having returned to his homeland in 1701, he resumed there his position as leader of the dissenters.

Gabriele Musatti