38

MARRIAGE OF PEGGY PENN [CHAP. IV

In January 1667 they dined with Mr and Mrs Pepys, evidently a dinner in honour of Peggy's engagement :

“January 4.—Comes our company to dinner, Lord Brouncker and his lady, Sir W. and Lady Pen, Peg, and her servant Mr Lowther, and we made merry. Mr Lowther a pretty gentleman, and too good for Peg.”ı

Peggy was married on February 15 very quietly, only a few friends and relations of both sides being present.? Pepys gives us his usual sarcastic remarks, which he indulged in whenever the Penn family were in question.

“February.-Borrowed many things from my kitchen for dressing the dinner. The wedding being private, because it is just before Lent, and so in vain to make new clothes till Easter, that they might see the fashions as they are like to be in summer, which is reason good enough.”

" 3

CHAPTER V

LIFE IN IRELAND

No mention is made of William Penn having been present at his sister's wedding, for when the Admiral had returned from his campaign, he was again dissatisfied with his son's serious bearing, and began to make plans to send him away from London, but the plague stopped his intentions for a time. It was a visitation calculated to make even the most careless pause and think seriously; in the face of this national calamity, the dazzling pleasures of society faded out of even frivolous minds.

But when the awful disease began to diminish, and before the great fire came as a second disaster, the Admiral turned over in his mind what steps it would be wise to take before his fanatical son had gone too far, his chief desire being to see him lead a life more in keeping with his age and position. The Admiral had been given to understand that it was likely that he would be raised to the peerage under the

40

VICE-REGAL COURT

[CHAP. V

title of Viscount Weymouth, which made his son's behaviour even more unpalatable.

The Duke of Ormond, a personal friend of his own, was at that time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and held a very brilliant court in Dublin. The Admiral had, as has been already mentioned, estates in Ireland, so he determined to send his son, nominally to look after the family property near Cork, but at the same time he obtained a small office under Government for him, so as to ensure his being obliged to be often in Dublin, and under the eye of the Viceroy. By these means he hoped that as young William would be properly introduced among friends at court, his ideas would received a new bias, and he might acquire more mundane tastes.

William was perfectly ready to fall in with his father's views. Life in London was distasteful to him, and as he was fond of useful employment, and always keen to travel, he set off willingly to Ireland, and for several months performed his duties to the entire satisfaction, and even joy of his father. He had duly presented himself at the Vice-regal court, where he had been very well received, and as his business in the south of Ireland called for much attention, he never was obliged to stay long enough for the frivolities of the Irish capital to become irksome to him.

Strange to say, he who had led such a life of meditation hitherto, was seized with military

1667]

PENN'S MILITARY CAREER

41

ardour, and, an insurrection having broken out at Carrickfergus, he offered his services as a volunteer in the expedition sent to quell it. He procured a suit of armour, which was worn instead of uniform, and it was doubtless then that the fine portrait of him in his warlike dress was painted.

But this martial spirit did not endure for long. One day, when on business in the town of Cork, he heard that Thomas Loe, the Quaker who had already impressed him so greatly, was about to preach at a meeting of Friends. Such an opportunity was not to be lost, all the fervent spirit of former days came crowding back to his mind. He was deeply moved when he found himself once more in the solemn company of sedate men and women. When Thomas Loe stood up in the assembly, and preached from the text, “There is a faith which overcometh the world, and there is a faith which is overcome by the world,” ? William was so exceedingly impressed that he burst into tears.

From that day his mind was irrevocably made up, his whole moral nature had been penetrated, and he had been made a new man. He felt he could no longer remain among the Episcopalians, or even the Puritans, but that the only

See Frontispiece. 2 Quakers never used actual texts of the Bible for their sermons, but formed them out of Scriptural words. 3 The Penns and Pennington, p. 174.

F

42

PENN BECOMES A QUAKER [CHAP. V

.

religious body to which he could honestly belong was that of the Quakers.

He continued to attend their meetings, and gloried in the fact that this must result in bringing him a martyr's fate, for, being at one of these meetings on September 3, 1667, he was apprehended on the plea of having, against the law, formed part of a “tumultuous assembly," and he was carried before the Mayor of Cork. That dignitary, perceiving by William's dress and bearing that he was quite of another stamp from the rest of the offenders, offered to release him on bail, but William, not choosing to take advantage of this privilege, was committed with eighteen others to prison. He now for the first time tasted persecution ; but this strengthened rather than weakened his resolution.

The rumour that William had become a Quaker reached his father through a nobleman resident in Ireland, who wrote to tell the Admiral what had happened. Sir William despatched orders at once for his son to be sent to England, no doubt his term of imprisonment had only been a short one.

Living, as the Admiral and his wife did, in the fashionable world, they must have been deeply wounded at every slighting remark on the persecuted and low-class sect with which their only son had cast in his lot. No word on the