William Penn

William Penn (1644–1718) was an English Friend — a Quaker — and the founder of Pennsylvania. Search asks who he was, who founded the colony, whether he was a Quaker, and what he did. This page answers those from his own books, not from a later encyclopedia article. The three modernized editions are No Cross, No Crown, A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers, and Some Fruits of Solitude.

Who was William Penn?

He was born in London in 1644, the son of Admiral William Penn, and died in England in 1718. He joined the people called Quakers in 1667. He wrote as a prisoner, as an advocate of Friends, and as a man in later seclusion. He founded Pennsylvania under a charter from Charles II in 1681 and arrived in the colony in 1682.

That is the whole outline this site will stand on. What follows is what Penn wrote, in the books you can read here.

Who founded Pennsylvania?

William Penn did. The charter is 1681; he arrived in 1682. He meant the colony as a place of religious liberty for Friends and other dissenters — the civil work that sits beside the three books, not a substitute for them. The history essay is The Founding of Pennsylvania.

This page will not narrate treaties, acreage, or later statesmen’s compliments. Those belong to other books. Here the founder is the same man who wrote from the Tower and from solitude.

Was William Penn a Quaker?

Yes. Friends called themselves the people called Quakers; Penn wrote as one of them. He was convinced at Cork in 1667 after hearing Thomas Loe. He was imprisoned for that faith. In 1694 he introduced Fox’s Journal with a short history of the movement, and closed it by sending the reader inward:

Turn in, turn in, I beseech you: where is the poison, there is the antidote. There you want Christ, and there you must find him.

— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers (1694)

That is Penn the Friend, in his own sentence. The same inward turn is the doctrine of No Cross, No Crown: not a name to wear, but a life to live.

What did William Penn do?

He wrote. He suffered imprisonment. He argued for liberty of conscience. He founded Pennsylvania.

The writing this site actually holds is three books:

• 1668, the Tower. No Cross, No Crown — first written, he says, “during my confinement in the Tower of London, in the year 1668.” Its sentence is the one on this page: Christ’s Cross is Christ’s way to Christ’s Crown.
• 1694, Fox’s Journal. Rise and Progress — “a standing testimony to that ever blessed truth in the inward parts, with which God, in my youthful time, visited my soul.”
• 1693 and 1702, seclusion. Some Fruits of Solitude — “the Fruit of Solitude: a school few care to learn in, though none instructs us better.” He blesses God for the retirement that produced it.

He also wrote other tracts — The Sandy Foundation Shaken, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience — which are not yet Friends Illuminated editions. They are named here so the three live books are not mistaken for his whole shelf.

William Penn facts

• Lived: 1644–1718. Born London; died in England.
• Faith: Friend / Quaker, convinced at Cork in 1667.
• Prison: Tower of London, 1668, where he wrote No Cross, No Crown.
• Colony: Founded Pennsylvania; charter 1681, arrived 1682.
• Books on this site: No Cross, No Crown; Rise and Progress; Some Fruits of Solitude (with More Fruits, 1702).
• His own measure of a life, from the preface to No Cross, No Crown: “The great business of man’s life is to answer the end for which he lives; and that is to glorify God and save his own soul.”

Read the three editions

The search terms lead here. The books are the destination.

• No Cross, No Crown — the Tower book, 1668.
• Rise and Progress — Friends in six chapters, 1694.
• Some Fruits of Solitude — 855 maxims from retirement.

Public-domain originals are free elsewhere. These are paid modernized editions — complete, unabridged, spelling and syntax updated, meaning not rewritten.