take an oath "that it is not lawful, upon any pretense whatsoever, to
take arms against the king, and that [he] would not endeavour any
alteration of government either in church or state." Penn would not
swear. He was therefore sentenced for six months to Newgate. "I wish you
wiser," said Robinson. "And I wish thee better," retorted Penn. "Send a
corporal," said the lieutenant, "with a file of musqueteers along with
him." "No, no," broke in Penn, "send thy lacquey; I know the way to
Newgate."

William continued in prison during the entire period of his sentence, at
first in a room for which he paid the jailers, then, by his own choice,
with his fellow Quakers in the "common stinking jail." Even here,
however, he managed, as before, to write; and he must have had access to
books, for what he wrote could not have been composed without sight of
the authors from whom he quoted. The most important of his writings at
this time was "The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience once more briefly
Debated and Defended by the Authority of Reason, Scripture and
Antiquity."

Being released from prison, Penn set out for the Continent, where he
traveled in Germany and Holland, holding meetings as opportunity
offered, and regaining such strength of body as he may have lost amidst
the rigors of confinement.

In 1672, being now back in England, and having reached the age of
twenty-seven years, he married Gulielma Maria Springett, a young and
charming Quakeress. Guli Springett's father had died when she was but
twenty-three years old, after such valiant service on the Parliamentary
side in the civil war that he had been knighted by the Speaker of the
House of Commons. Her mother, thus bereft, had married Isaac Pennington,
a quiet country gentleman, in whose company, after some search for
satisfaction in religion, she had become a Quaker. Pennington's
Quakerism, together with the sufferings which it brought upon him, had
made him known to Penn. It was to him that Penn had written, three years
before, to describe the death of Thomas Loe. "Taking me by the hand,"
said William, "he spoke thus: 'Dear heart, bear thy cross, stand
faithful for God, and bear thy testimony in thy day and generation; and
God will give thee an eternal crown of glory, that none shall ever take
from thee. There is not another way. Bear thy cross. Stand faithful for
God.'"

It was in Pennington's house that Thomas Ellwood lived, as tutor to Guli
and the other children