Of the many outstanding characters to emerge from 17th-century England, two of the most interesting were Admiral Sir William Penn and his more famous son William, founder of the State of Pennsylvania.
Admiral Penn rose to prominence during the English Civil War, in which he took the parliamentary side. Cromwell made him Admiral of the Irish Seas and, as a further reward, granted him the forfeited lands of McCarthy, Earl of Muskerry, around Macroom, Co Cork. Contrary to local lore, his son William was not born in the castle there, but at Tower Hill, London in October 1644.
In 1655, Admiral Penn judiciously moved his family to Macroom to escape the attentions of Cromwell, who rightly suspected him of being one of those plotting the return of Charles II to the throne of England.
Itinerant preacher
In Ireland, the young William Penn heard an itinerant Quaker preacher named Thomas Lowe speak to his family. The experience intensified his religious feelings. In 1600 - the year of Charles II's restoration to the throne - he went, aged 15, to Oxford, but was expelled for his Puritan non-conformism. It is said that he and other Puritans tore the "Popeish" surplices from some choristers.
Admiral Penn reacted by whipping and expelling his son from home, but William's loving mother kept him secretly solvent. To thwart his son's religiosity, Admiral Penn sent him on a two-year "grand tour" of Europe, from which he returned according to the diarist Pepys, "most modish, grown quite a fine gentleman, having learnt good manners in France". He then spent a year studying law at Lincoln's Inn before being sent to Ireland. The court of the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Ormond, while not matching in licence and lasciviousness that in London, was a place of "great gaiety and splendour". The 22-year-old William Penn seems to have taken it all in his stride - so much so that he joined Lord Arran in an expedition to suppress a mutiny by soldiers at Carrickfergus. This is reflected by his wearing armour in the attached portrait. He also took time to look after his father's estates. Macroom Castle and the lands around it had been returned to McCarthy with the title of Lord Clancarty by a grateful King Charles II, to whom he had stayed loyal and whose "journeys" he had shared during Cromwell's rule. In lieu of these lands, Admiral Penn loss was granted the Barony of Imokilly in East Cork with Shangarry Castle (now being restored by the noted Potter Simon Pierce). Ballymaloe House, today an outstanding culinary centre, was also part of this grant.
Indefatigable work
Penn Junior met up again with the preacher William Lowe in the autumn of 1667, at a Cork meeting of the Society of Friends - derisively termed Quakers from their "quaking at the presence of the Lord". He joined the society in Cork around this time and was indefatigable in his work for the it. In the seven years after his conversion he published 42 books and pamphlets. He was imprisoned four times for his beliefs. As a prisoner in the Tower of London, he wrote his most famous book, No Cross, No Crown. He also preached in Holland and Germany to many sects of a similar persuasion, who, like the English and Irish Quakers, were being persecuted.
At one time there were 10,000 Quakers in English jails. One English jury, led by Edward Bushell, ignored the a judge's threats and brought in a "not guilty" verdict on William Penn. They were imprisoned, but later released by Lord Chief Justice John Vaughan on the principle that "a judge may try to open the eyes of the jurors but may not lead them by the nose". This principle, known as the "Bushell Case", became a landmark in legal history.
Cromwell's diktat
Penn returned to Ireland in 1688 for two years to manage his father's affairs and promulgate the tenets of the Society of Friends. An abstract from the journal of his extraordinarily energectic idealist is worth quoting. He records much going to Dublin to plead for the imprisoned Cork Quakers. Returning from such an expedition he wrote on December 8th 1669: "We left Tallow and passed a great company of Irish gathered to the Mass upon a hill." Obviously Cromwell's diktat that the Irish should go `to Hell or Connaught' was not being carried out - mainly due to the need for labourers to work the land for new colonists such as Admiral William Penn.
Penn's colonisation of Pennsylvania and his foundation of Philadelphia (the City of Brotherly Love) deserves an article on its own merits.