By this time no one could doubt that William Penn had courage, for it took considerable bravery to face and endure imprisonment in the Tower of London as he had done, and this show of courage won admiration even from his father the Admiral. At this time Sir William was having troubles of his own. The command of his fleet had been taken from him, and he was suffering from the gout; altogether he was not in a very pleasant frame of mind, but he softened sufficiently toward his son to ask him to go again to Ireland to look after the family property there, although the request was made through William's devoted mother, and not directly. When he wrote to his son, he showed that he still rather doubted William's filial regard, for he said, "If you are ordained to be another cross to me, God's will be done, and I shall arm myself as best I can against it."

When William reached Ireland, he found the lot of the Quakers was then no better than it had been before. Their very virtues—for they were generally a hard-working and thrifty people—had set many against them. Indeed, nearly all the Quakers in Cork had been lodged in prison. Even in prison, however, they managed to carry on their affairs; for, said Penn, they turned the jail into "a meetinghouse and a workhouse, for they would not be idle anywhere."

He at once set to work to help these friends of his, and drew up a statement of the charges against the imprisoned Quakers and a defense of them, and with the help of some friends took the matter to the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin, with the result that before long the Quakers in Cork were given their freedom. Encouraged by this success, he made it his business to try to free people of his religion whenever he found them in the grasp of the law.

He managed the family estate in Ireland so well that when he went back to London in 1670, his father decided to forgive his son all the trouble he had put him to, and the courtier father and the Quaker son were completely reconciled. That did not mean, however, that the son had given up any of his opinions. It happened that at about the same time the government decided that the new religion was winning too many converts, and so put into effect a law that made unlawful any meetings for religious worship other than those held by the Church of England, by the terms of which law the magistrates were allowed to fine and imprison offenders without giving them a trial by jury; it also allowed to those who gave information about such illegal meetings one third of all the fines that were imposed. Whenever the Quakers held a meeting, therefore, some enemy was sure to give notice of it, and many Friends were imprisoned and more were fined, of course to the advantage of meddling busybodies.

One day in August William went to a Quaker meetinghouse in Gracechurch Street in London, and happened to find soldiers on guard before the building. That roused the young man's spirit, and he with some of his companions decided to hold a "silent meeting" on the sidewalk before the front doors. Presently Penn felt called upon to speak, but no sooner did he open his mouth than the soldiers pounced upon him and marched him off to the mayor.

According to Quaker custom, Penn kept his hat on before the mayor, and this so maddened that official, that he said the prisoner "should have his hat pulled off, for all he was Admiral Penn's son." Then he went on to abuse the Admiral himself, saying that he had starved the sailors of his fleet, and repeating other stories that were popular among the Admiral's enemies. He threatened to send young William to Bridewell Prison, and see that he was soundly whipped! Finally Penn was taken to a certain jail known as the Black Dog, where he was locked up with a number of other Quakers and Baptists and Independents, who had all been holding meetings in despite of the law. From the Black Dog William wrote to his father. "I am very well," said he, "and have no trouble upon my spirits, besides my absence from thee, especially at this juncture, but otherwise I can say, I was never better; and what they have to charge me with is harmless."

Penn and a man named William Mead were put on trial in the Old Bailey early in September, 1670, charged with having preached at an unlawful meeting, thereby causing a great concourse and tumult, to the disturbance of the king's peace and the great terror of many of his subjects. The two prisoners went into court with their hats on, but the officers promptly pulled the hats off. Thereupon the judges ordered the officers to put the hats again on the prisoners' heads, and began to question them about their wearing hats in court. This was regarded as very disrespectful, and could not pass unreproved. Finally the judges fined each man forty marks for such "contempt of court."

The prisoners were not allowed lawyers to defend them, and the judges proceeded to make sport of the two Quakers, as if the trial were a form of bull-baiting. Penn said that he had broken no law, but had only been worshiping God according to his own conscience. He stood up for his rights as an Englishman, and evidently impressed the jury with the justice of his claims, for, in spite of all the efforts of the judges, the jury would only find him "guilty of speaking" in Gracechurch Street, and of no crime whatever. The judges sent the jury out again and again, finally keeping them locked up for two days and nights without beds or food, but the jury were not to be browbeaten. The judges at last had to accept the verdict, "not guilty," but in revenge fined each of the prisoners forty marks and ordered them imprisoned until the fines were paid, and in addition actually fined the jury for bringing in what they considered a mock verdict!

Penn and Mead and the jury were then sent to Newgate, where they simply refused to buy their liberty by paying the unjust fines. From there Penn wrote to his father: "I intreat thee not to purchase my liberty. They will repent them of their proceedings. I am now a prisoner notoriously against law." In another letter he wrote: "Considering I cannot be free, but upon such terms as strengthening their arbitrary and base proceedings, I shall rather choose to suffer any hardship.... My present restraint is so far from being humor, that I would rather perish than release myself by so indirect a course as to satiate their revengeful, avaricious appetites."

The question of the right of the judges to fine the jury was finally brought before the Court of Common Pleas, which decided that the fines were unlawful, and ordered the jury set at liberty. Penn and Mead, however, had been fined for wearing their hats in court, and there is no knowing how long they might have been kept in prison if the Admiral, who was ill, had not disregarded his son's letters, and paid the fines of both Penn and Mead, when they were at once set at liberty.

Admiral Penn was very ill, and when his son returned this time from prison, he was so much concerned for the future of a young man who seemed to have such a knack for getting into trouble that he sent a friend to the Duke of York asking that the duke look after William and try to defend him before King Charles should William continue in his course of resistance to the laws. Both the duke and the king sent back their promises of help to the sick Admiral, and both of them kept those promises when William Penn needed friends later on.

As his gout increased the Admiral began to think that perhaps his son William had been right after all, and that the court of King Charles II. was not altogether what it should be. He began to talk almost like a Puritan, and to condemn many of the nobles, once his boon companions, for their loose way of living. Father and son were drawn close together in those last days of the Admiral's illness. Sir William said to his son, "Three things I commend to you:

"First.—Let nothing in this world tempt you to wrong your conscience; so you will keep peace at home, which will be a feast to you in the day of trouble.

"Secondly.—Whatever you design to do, lay it justly and time it seasonably, for that gives security and despatch.

"Lastly.—Be not troubled at disappointments, for if they may be recovered, do it; if they cannot, trouble is vain. If you could not have helped it, be content; there is often peace and profit in submitting to Providence: for afflictions make wise. If you could have helped it, let not your trouble exceed instruction for another time.

"These rules will carry you with firmness and comfort through this inconstant world."

The Admiral died on September 16, 1670, leaving William to look after his mother and his younger brother Richard. His sister Margaret had married Antony Lowther, of Maske, in Yorkshire.

Penn's Crest.