William Penn Fights for Religious Tolerance

In 1686, when making a third missionary journey to Holland and Germany, Penn was charged by James with an informal mission to the prince of Orange to endeavor to gain his assent to the removal of religious tests. Here he met Burnet, from whom, as from the prince, he gained no satisfaction, and who greatly disliked him. On his return he went on a preaching mission through England. His position with James was undoubtedly a compromising one, and it is not strange that, wishing to tolerate Papists, he should, in the prevailing temper of England, be once more accused of being a Jesuit, while he was in constant antagonism to their body. 

Even Tillotson took up this view strongly, though he at once accepted Penn’s vehement disavowal. In 1687 James published the Declaration of 4ndulgence, and Penn probably drew up the address of thanks on the part of the Quakers. It fully reflects his views, which are further ably put in the pamphlet Good Advice to the Church of England, Roman Catholics, and Protestant Dissenters, in which he showed the wisdom and duty of repealing the Test Acts and Penal Laws. At the Revolution he behaved with courage. He was one of the few friends of the king who remained in London, and, when twice summoned before the council, spoke boldly in his behalf. He admitted that James had asked him to come to him in France; but at the same time he asserted his perfect loyalty. 

During the absence of William in 1690 he was proclaimed by Mary as a dangerous person, but no evidence of treason was forthcoming. It was now that he lost by death two of his dearest friends, Robert Barclay and George Fox. It was at the funeral of the latter that, upon the information of the notorious informer William Fuller (1670—1717?), an attempt was made to arrest him, but he had just left the ground; the fact that no further steps were then taken shows how little the government believed in his guilt. He now lived in retirement in London, though his address was perfectly well known to his friends in the council. In 1691, again on Fuller’s evidence, a proclamation was issued for the arrest of Penn and two others as being concerned in Preston’s plot. In 1692 he began to write again, both on questions of Quaker discipline and in defense of the sect. Just Measures in an Epistle of Peace and Love, The New Athenians (in reply to the attacks of the Athenian Mercury), and A Key opening the Way to every Capacity are the principal publications of this year.