Book, was perhaps the most
annoying to the Puritan Nonconformists. [297]

The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. Though, as
a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned politics as a
pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interests, one of them, widely
distinguished from the rest by station and fortune, lived in the
highest circles, and had constant access to the royal ear. This was the
celebrated William Penn. His father had held great naval commands,
had been a Commissioner of the Admiralty, had sate in Parliament, had
received the honour of knighthood, and had been encouraged to expect a
peerage. The son had been liberally educated, and had been designed
for the profession of arms, but had, while still young, injured his
prospects and disgusted his friends by joining what was then generally
considered as a gang of crazy heretics. He had been sent sometimes to
the Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had been tried at the Old Bailey
for preaching in defiance of the law. After a time, however, he had been
reconciled to his family, and had succeeded in obtaining such powerful
protection that, while all the gaols of England were filled with his
brethren, he was permitted, during many years, to profess his opinions
without molestation. Towards the close of the late reign he had
obtained, in satisfaction of an old debt due to him from the crown, the
grant of an immense region in North America. In this tract, then peopled
only by Indian hunters, he had invited his persecuted friends to settle.
His colony was still in its infancy when James mounted the throne.

Between James and Penn there had long been a familiar acquaintance. The
Quaker now became a courtier, and almost a favourite. He was every
day summoned from the gallery into the closet, and sometimes had long
audiences while peers were kept waiting in the antechambers. It was
noised abroad that he had more real power to help and hurt than many
nobles who filled high offices. He was soon surrounded by flatterers and
suppliants. His house at Kensington was sometimes thronged, at his
hour of rising, by more than two hundred suitors. [298] He paid dear,
however, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked coldly
on him, and requited his services with obloquy. He was loudly accused of
being a Papist, nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed that he had been educated
at St. Omers, and others that he had been ordained at Rome. These
calumnies, indeed