The Persecution of William Penn

The Persecution of William Penn

By

Carl Reader

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2004 Carl Reader

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Chapter I

My father and I shared the same name, and the same fate of political ruin.

Admiral Sir William Penn was thought to be too powerful after his many great victories on the high seas, when he was in reality a great patriot: he was brought down by opponents at court. I created the colony of Pennsylvania in the New World to escape religious persecution in the old one, but was accused of treason and hypocrisy, when my only intent was to establish a place of peace and freedom.

I was born October 14, 1644, in a time of persecutions, the bloody Civil War over religion in England and the Church's Inquisition in Spain.

In 1638, Charles I had insisted the Church of Scotland worship as Anglicans and use a common prayer book, which brought on war with Scotland. Charles tried to rule by Divine Right, rather than work with Parliament, and he dissolved Parliament when it resisted his conflict with the Scots.

The Puritans in Parliament also took up arms against the absolutist King, as one religious faction fought against another for control of the country and imposition of its beliefs. Charles needed the taxes only Parliament could levy, and after defeats in Scotland, he fought constant battles with Parliament for absolute control of England's money, power and destiny.

My family was directly affected by this contest.

An army was raised in Ireland to fight the Scots, but fearing Catholic Ireland might be next to be forced to worship as Anglicans, that army turned against Charles, then threatened to fight Parliament in support of the King. All the factions of the country faced off against each other in a swirl of religious hatred.

In 1641, Irish Catholics massacred two thousand Protestants in one night, and the widow who was to be my mother, Margaret van der Schuren, had to flee her estates in Ireland. During her flight, she met and married my father, who was fighting for Parliament as a sea captain in the Irish War.

Also around that time, my uncle, George Penn, a wealthy merchant living in Seville, was accused by envious priests of attempting to convert his Catholic wife and her sisters to Protestantism.

He was taken by the Inquisition, his goods and money confiscated by the priests, and he was held and tortured for three years. He was beaten with knotted ropes while bound to the bars of his cell, breaking his bones and dislocating his joints. My father came to his rescue when he boarded a Spanish ship, the Patrick, off of England in December of 1646. Don Juan de Urbino, the secretary to the viceroy of the Low Countries, was taken prisoner and eventually exchanged for my uncle.

When my father found out how George Penn had been treated by the Inquisition, he was furious, and later when I heard the story as a boy, I was disgusted with a Catholic priesthood that could do such things to innocent people and call itself holy.

This was the world into which I was born, one of blood spilled by one religious faction after another and blood extracted by all.

I learned what it was to face a world deaf and dumb to tolerance at a young age. Others would impute false motives and deceptions to me, as they did to my father, in a world that was split and confused over faction and religion and willing to believe anything about anyone who was not of their kind. The world of my time broke bones and shed blood for what it imagined was holy.

It led me to become a Quaker, yet there were few worse things to be in England then, and few worse times to choose to follow conscience.

It only subjected me to persecution.

My father was as great as his exploits suggest. Admiral Penn first made his name as a ship's captain sailing off the Irish coast in the civil war. He was an Anglican from a seafaring merchant family, and he went to sea at twelve, learning the craft of war so well that at seventeen he captained his own ship. Since he had been a lowly seaman and understood their plight, he was compassionate but stern.

As long as I stand at the helm, I shall steer with a firm hand, I remember him saying, but he steered with his heart as well.

Chapter II

A boy with such a father as mine learns respect and love at an early age.

Admiral Penn was known as the most able man in the country, a genius of naval warfare, and I loved him for all the qualities that made him so. I can never forget how sad my mother was when he left home for months at a time to fight for England, and how joyful she was when he returned.

I studied and stayed alone much of the time he was away, looking at the dark clouds on the horizon and worrying he might never come back.

As a boy, I learned of the Society of Friends from Isaac Pennington.

He was a mystical man, one off in deep communication with God for much of the time, under trances. I did not fully understand the opening of joy he brought me, but its truth was immediately apparent to me with all the blood and chaos around me, for that blood and chaos threatened to take my father from me.

But what does a boy who was born to privilege and war do when he has been touched by a vision from God, one so strong he can not resist it, one that he does not understand?

I didn't know if I could trust my own judgment when my vision came to me with my destiny.

My mother and I had descended into another of our dark moods. The Puritan Protector, Oliver Cromwell, had sent my father to the Caribbean on a mission of conquest, after Charles I had been beheaded. Following many difficulties, Admiral Penn took Jamaica from the Spanish, giving England a land so rich it would fill the country's coffers for years.

Instead of being thankful, Cromwell listened to those who contended my father's command of the mission had been incompetent. He imprisoned my father in the Tower of London after his return from Jamaica, since there also were rumors Admiral Penn was going to take the fleet and switch to the royalist side and put Charles II on the throne.

Cromwell is a serious man, my mother told me, deeply worried despite her lighthearted nature. I pray we see your father again.

I understood my father was in danger of a death sentence for treason, and I prayed for his deliverance night and day, in a fever in my room.

Even a hint of betrayal was reason enough for execution by the Roundheads. I long maintained my vigil praying for my father to return.

Almost by magic, Cromwell relented, and my father came home.

And then God came to me in person.

At the age of eleven, I was studying at the Chigwell Free Grammar School. I was alone in my room, just after my father's deliverance. I was crying with such relief at my father's release that I was quivering, suffering cold and hot flashes.

Suddenly, there was a bright light in the room and a presence so thick and comforting it was as though I had been immersed in a warm bright soothing sea. I could not move. I could not breathe. I sat motionless in my chair.

Lead them away. You are to lead them away from this land, a voice said.

I fell from my chair.

I was shivering with cold now and could barely breathe for several minutes. I gasped to revive myself. I did not understand at the time, but that presence had stopped my heart. It made me feel the agony around me. I lay writhing on the floor, and I knew God had come to me. God had told me I would be the one to take his people out of bondage in England.

Chapter III

Soon after, I heard for the first time the great Quaker preacher Thomas Loe talking of what it meant to be a real Christian.

I heard him speak when my father invited the traveling preacher into our home at Macroon. Both my father and mother were open to new ideas and thought the Quakers might have some good ones.

Thomas Loe's preaching was a powerful influence on a mind opening to the evils of the debauchery and murder all around, the endless wars abroad and rebellion at home. He spoke with such sweetness and music in his voice, and with a condemnation of the world that allowed such horrors. Thomas Loe spoke of the Quakers as peaceful men who took the Word seriously, as early Christians did, as Christian martyrs did who would ascent to be devoured by lions rather than harm others.

I learned that no true Christian can kill.

Yet Christians all around me were doing far worse than killing. Few others of my station, few in this world, believed in justice at all, or the possibility of peace. Let tolerance be damned, and blood be a means to an end, they believed, but Thomas Loe said there was a holy Inner Light in all men that God gave them. If they listened to that Inner Light they could talk to God directly and triumph through his love.

I lived with two minds when young, as my Inner Light conflicted with the horror around me, and then when older, too. I lived with two minds simply to survive the life I was born into, since this idea of peace conflicted with what I saw around me. Many said I was a hypocrite because of it.

Despite his great love of country, rumors did in Admiral Penn. How else could it be, in such a dishonest country as ours? He was disgraced, his command taken from him at the end of his career.

I remember as a boy going to the docks after his return from the Mediterranean and watching as five treasure chests filled with gold were pulled from the hole of his ship. He insisted all the treasure be delivered to the government's coffers, in spite of the fact my mother and his crew begged