apparently
destined for the usual career at the court of England. But while at
Oxford, young Penn astonished everybody and scandalized his relatives by
joining the Society of Friends, or Quakers, founded by George Fox only a
short time before. His family at once removed him from Oxford and sent
him to Paris, in the hope that amid the gayeties of the French capital
he would forget his Quaker notions, but he was far from doing so. He
returned home after a time, and his father threatened to shut him up in
the Tower of London, but he retorted that for him the Tower was the
worst argument in the world. We get some amusing glimpses of the
contention in his household.

"You may 'thee' and 'thou' other folk as much as you like," his angry
father told him, "but don't you dare to 'thee' and 'thou' the King, or
the Duke of York, or me."

The Quakers insisted upon the use of "thee" and "thou," alleging that
the use of the plural "you" was not only absurd, but a form of flattery,
and this manner of address has been persisted in by them to this day.
Penn, of course, continued to use them, much to his father's
indignation, and even went so far as to wear his hat in the king's
presence, an act of audacity which only amused that merry monarch. The
story goes that the king, seeing young Penn covered, removed his own
hat, remarking jestingly, "Wherever I am, it is customary for only one
to be covered"; a neat reproof, as well as a lesson in manners which
would have made any other young man's ears tingle, but Penn calmly
enough replied, "Keep thy hat on, Friend Charles."

After his father's death, in 1670, Penn found himself heir to a great
estate, and began to devote himself entirely to the defense and
explanation of Quakerism. Again and again, he was thrown into prison and
kept there for months on end, but gradually he began to win for the
Friends a certain degree of respect and consideration, perhaps as much
because of his high social station, gallant bearing and magnetic
personality, as because of any of his arguments. In 1677, he made a sort
of missionary tour of Europe, returning to England to set actively
afloat the project for Quaker colonization in America which he had long
been turning over in his mind.

Three years, however, passed before he could secure from the Duke of
York a release of all his powers of sovereignty over West Jersey, but
this was finally accomplished, and soon afterwards he secured from the
crown a chart