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1671] DESCRIPTION OF PRISON

75 hammocks, and there were so many of them, that they were strung up in rows three deep, one above the other, so that those in the upper and middle rows of hammocks were obliged to go to bed first. Under the lower hammocks were laid beds upon the floor against the wall for the sick and weak prisoners.

William Penn must, however, have had a separate cell, for he was not denied pen and paper, and spent his whole time in writing.

Besides more treatises, he addressed Parliament in an able paper, pointing out the evils that would ensue were the Conventicle Act enforced with greater severity, as had been proposed, and concluded by expressing a hope that Parliament before proceeding to extremities would give the Society of Friends a fair hearing.

On his release in 1671, when the six months were over, William Penn went abroad. He very likely received advice from high quarters to do so till the storm he had raised was somewhat abated. His health having suffered a good deal, he was glad to take this opportunity of visiting Friends in Holland and Germany, but of these travels he has left no record whatever, although in his later journey in 1677, he alludes to an incident in 1671, which gives us a clue as to his movements. He visited Emden, a fortified town

1 The Penns and the Penningtons, p. 140.
· Penn's Travels in Germany and Holland, vol. i., p. 59.

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PENN GOES ABROAD

[CHAP. IX

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in East Friesland, also a Friends' settlement at Herwerden, not far from Emden, under the superintendence of a remarkable man named Labadie, who had formerly been a Jesuit. On William Penn's return to England he appears to have travelled about in various counties, where, besides attending to business of the sect, he made many personal friends among people in his own rank of life; and it was on one of these occasions that he became acquainted with the girl who afterwards became his wife.

CHAPTER X

THE PENNINGTONS

At Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, there had gathered a circle of cultivated people round the home of a well-known man named Isaac Pennington, who, with his wife Maria, was much sought after, and beloved.

Isaac Pennington was the son of Alderman Pennington, who figured during the Civil War on the side of the Parliament. The Alderman had also served in the High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I., therefore on the accession of Charles II., the regicide thought it advisable to seek retirement in the country, where his son Isaac resided. The latter, while an extremely clever man of brilliant intellect, was at the same time an unambitious, quiet, country gentleman, of a deeply religious turn of mind, and his father, who was of quite a different stamp, had no great sympathy with him.

In the village of Chalfont, a young widow named Lady Springett came to reside. She was

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SIR WILLIAM SPRINGETT [CHAP. X Mary, daughter of Sir John Proude, of an old Kent family, and having been early left an orphan, lived with the family of Sir Edward Partridge, who was her guardian. His sister, Madam Springett, lived with him, and she was brought up with the young Springetts.

A mutual attachment sprang up between Mary and the eldest of the sons, William, and they were married when he was only twenty-one and she was eighteen. He served with Cromwell's army, and had taken the oath against popery.

When quartered near Arundel, during the war, Sir William Springett fell ill of a fever called “Calenture,” doubtless the equivalent of the modern typhoid. He was a true and brave soldier, of noble presence, and a character at once strong and sweet, and he and his young wife were devotedly attached. They thoroughly sympathised in religious views, and had ceased to belong to the Episcopal Church. At the news of his dangerous illness, Lady Springett, although just about to become a mother, set forth on a perilous journey, to hasten to his side. Overcoming every obstacle, with courage undaunted, she made her way to Arundel, fording rivers and evading hostile troops, and arrived in time to find her husband still alive, but sinking fast. He died in her arms, thanking her and blessing her for her loving devotion.

Within a few weeks she gave birth to a

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1671]

JOHN MILTON

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daughter, who was named Gulielma Maria, and for a period the young mother lived with her mother-in-law, Madam Springett, who tendered her with much care and affection. When once more Lady Springett returned to the world in which she had formerly lived, she became very troubled and unsettled in her mind; she found that the gaiety, the dancing, and the dress only filled her with disgust, and she could find no peace or happiness in life. She gave up London, and retired to Chalfont with her little girl, and there she met and married Isaac Pennington, in whom she found a kind husband and a tender father to her fatherless child. He was not then a Quaker, in those days good men and women leaned towards the feelings and ideas of Quakers often long before they had any intention of joining the sect, and without any desire of imitating their speech or their sober dress.

Another prominent member of the gifted circle who lived in Chalfont was John Milton, the blind poet, and close by resided his chosen friend and companion, Thomas Ellwood. This man was very well known at that period. He had been most severely treated by his father in his youth, on account of what the old man considered new-fangled principles. He used to hide all Thomas's hats, so that he had to go bareheaded, and when the luckless young man said “thee" and “thou,” he would fall upon him with

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