"This book features: the integration of English history with Penn's personal struggles and accomplishments (and shows how specific events affected Penn and the Quakers); thorough coverage of the Quaker faith provides insight into Penn's motivations and actions; chapter-ending summaries provide a synopsis of important events in Penn's life and chart Penn's evolution from peaceful Quaker to profit-making colonizer; and study and discussion questions at the end of the book help students check their reading and comprehension. These questions may also be used to facilitate discussions in the classroom or student study groups."--BOOK JACKET.

*Includes pictures *Includes Penn's quotes *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom." - William Penn Of all the original 13 colonies in America, only one owes its conception to one man, and indeed, Pennsylvania was and still remains bound up in the life and character of its founder, William Penn. Here was a man born into a military family who saw his father rise through the ranks of the 17th century English court to become a friend of the king, and he even considered a military career for himself, only to leave it all behind to become a member of the "Society of Friends," known colloquially as the Quakers. Few today know much about the Quakers. Whenever the subject of Quakerism slips into conversation, most picture a rosy-cheeked fellow in a simple black overcoat, and a wide brim hat atop his thick, cloud-white hair, inspired by the famous logo of the Quaker Oats company. In spite of the stereotype, Quakers today come in all colors, shapes, and sizes, with the more liberal folk sporting trendy haircuts, tattoos, and various piercings. They call themselves "Friends," a starkly different but very devout following of God. They strive for a world empowered by peace and acceptance, an ambitious mission fueled by diversity, blind to race, gender, or creed. As amicably harmless as the Friends might appear, there was once a time when being a Quaker was at the very best an instant conviction, and at the very worst a death sentence. Their unorthodox ideals were considered poisonous and potentially dangerous by authorities, who would fight time and time again to stamp out the flames of their movement, but still, they weathered storm after storm. And while the peace-loving followers of Christ were famed for their views of harmony, by no means were they feeble opponents. Not only would they persevere in the face of persecution, theirs was a movement so powerful that it stood strong for centuries, and much of that was due to William Penn's work in North America. For all his love of the sect and its plain ways, he was himself quite a scholar, able to debate some of the greatest minds of his age and win. He was also an ambitious man who saw the answer to his people's persecution not in capitulation but in building a new society where all people could be free to worship God in the way each felt right. Along the way he befriended kings and scoundrels and suffered at the hands of each, only to triumph repeatedly, until finally he experienced what was, for the people of his faith, the ultimate triumph of death, knowing that the colony he had founded was thriving and would likely do so for generations to come. William Penn: The Life and Legacy of the English Quaker Who Founded Pennsylvania chronicles the life of one of colonial America's most important figures. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about William Penn like never before.

William Penn (1644-1718) – Quaker activist, theorist of liberty of conscience, and colonial founder and proprietor – played a central role in the movement for religious liberty on both sides of the Atlantic for more than four decades. This volume presents, for the first time, a fully annotated scholarly edition of Penn's political writings over the course of his long public career, tracing his thinking from his early theorisation of religious toleration and liberty of conscience in England, as a leading member of the Society of Friends during the 1670s, to his colonial undertaking in Pennsylvania a decade later, his controversial role in the years leading up to the 1688 Revolution, and the ongoing consequences of that Revolution to his future prospects. Penn's political writings provide an illuminating window into the increasingly sophisticated and influential movement for liberty of conscience in the early modern world.

It may surprise many that William Penn, who founded one of the thirteen original American colonies, spent just four years on American soil. Even more surprising, though, is Penn's remarkable impact on the fundamental principles of religious freedom on both sides of the Atlantic, especially given his tumultuous life: from his youthful radicalism as leader of the Quaker movement to his role as governor and proprietor of a major American colony; from royal courtier to alleged traitor to the Crown. In the first major biography of this important transatlantic figure in more than forty years, Andrew R. Murphy takes readers through the defiant and complex life of a religious dissenter, political theorist, and social activist.

It's no surprise that Friends pioneered on race and gender issues, it is less well known that most trustees at early Johns Hopkins were Friends or more women ministers came from a Quaker school at the turn of the 20th century than any other institution. This book overthrows stereotypes about religion in education with data about interactions between Friends, Holiness, liberalism, and other currents. Azusa Pacific, Barclay, Bryn Mawr, Cornell, Earlham, Friends, George Fox, Guilford, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Malone, Swarthmore, Whittier, William Penn, and Wilmington cover the gamut in academia. Founded by Friends explains why Quakers founded 15 colleges and universities and how and why these changed over time. It notes how these schools are informed by, and in most cases shaped by, a Quaker heritage. For students of race, gender, and peace studies in higher education, this book, funded by Azusa Pacific, Bryn Mawr, Cornell, Earlham, Guilford, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, and Swarthmore, will be a centerpiece for your collection.

In a seventeenth-century English landscape populated with towering political and philosophical figures like Hobbes, Harrington, Cromwell, Milton, and Locke, William Penn remains in many ways a man apart. Yet despite being widely neglected by scholars, he was a sophisticated political thinker who contributed mightily to the theory and practice of religious liberty in the early modern Atlantic world. In this long-awaited intellectual biography of William Penn, Andrew R. Murphy presents a nuanced portrait of this remarkable entrepreneur, philosopher, Quaker, and politician. Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration focuses on the major political episodes that attracted William Penn's sustained attention as a political thinker and actor: the controversy over the Second Conventicle Act, the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, the founding and settlement of Pennsylvania, and the contentious reign of James II. Through a careful examination of writings published in the midst of the religious and political conflicts of Restoration and Revolutionary England, Murphy contextualizes the development of Penn's thought in England and America, illuminating the mutual interconnections between Penn's political thought and his colonizing venture in America. An early advocate of representative institutions and religious freedom, William Penn remains a singular figure in the history of liberty of conscience. His political theorizing provides a window into the increasingly vocal, organized, and philosophically sophisticated tolerationist movement that gained strength over the second half of the seventeenth century. Not only did Penn attempt to articulate principles of religious liberty as a Quaker in England, but he actually governed an American polity and experienced firsthand the complex relationship between political theory and political practice. Murphy's insightful analysis shows Penn's ongoing significance to the broader study of Anglo-American political theory and practice, ultimately pointing scholars toward a new way of understanding the enterprise of political theory itself.