As He Sets Out for America for the First Time, William Penn Signs and Inscribes His Great Treatise on Quakerism to a Fellow Author of His New World Constitution 

An extraordinary rarity, the first book signed by Penn we have ever seen

William Penn went to Ireland in 1667 at age 22 to manage the estates of his father, Admiral Sir William Penn. There he became acquainted with a Quaker preacher who convinced him of the truth of the Quaker faith, and he chose to join the group. At this time Quakers were considered enemies of the state religion, and thus of the state, and they were scorned, ridiculed, imprisoned, and sometimes banished. His prominent and well-connected father was none too pleased by his son’s decision, which would later prove to be significant. The attitude towards Quakers then is well illustrated by the famed diarist, Samuel Pepys, who knew both Penn senior and junior. He recorded in 1667, “Mr. William Pen, who is lately come over from Ireland, is a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing.”

William Penn was a deeply committed Quaker, and was not just paying lip service. He was imprisoned several times for writing and preaching about Quakerism. He was first imprisoned in the Tower of London, a fact often pointed out to American tourists who visit the place today. After eight months, his father managed to have him released. During this imprisonment, Penn wrote “No Cross, No Crown”, a work explaining Quaker beliefs and practices. Pepys commented on it, writing: “So to supper, and after supper to read a ridiculous nonsensical book set out by Will. Pen, for the Quakers; but so full of nothing but nonsense, that I was ashamed to read in it.”

In 1670, Penn was arrested at a Quaker meeting and accused of planning with another Quaker to start a riot. A jury found Penn not guilty of any crime, but the judge threatened to fine or imprison the jurors unless they changed their verdict. When they refused to do so, the jurors were in fact imprisoned. But on appeal, England’s highest judges prohibited the penalizing of jurors. This action helped establish the independence of juries. In 1677, Penn went to the Netherlands and Germany with George Fox and other Quaker leaders. In these countries, Penn met other Quakers who were eager to settle in a free, new land. Some people in England also wanted to settle where they could worship in their own way without fear. Penn realized that the only hope for the Quakers was in America.

When Admiral Penn died the King owed him £16,000 (a huge sum in those days), and William Penn inherited that claim. In June 1680, Penn asked the King to pay the debt not in money, but in land in America. Penn was a friend of the King’s brother James, then the Duke of York and later King James II. This, the welcome opportunity to download a cash debt he would struggle to pay for land in the wilderness, and the knowledge that a new colony would increase the riches flowing to his coffers, predisposed Charles to agree. As the year went on, it became clear that Penn’s offer would be accepted, and the grant would be sizable.

In 1681, from England, Penn set out to lay the legal framework for an ethical society where power was derived from the people, from “open discourse”, in much the same way as a Quaker Meeting was run. Notably, Penn thought it important to limit his own power as well. The new government would call for death for only two crimes, treason and murder, rather than the two hundred crimes under English law, and all cases were to be tried before a jury. Prisons would be progressive, attempting to correct through “workshops” rather than through hellish confinement. Over twenty drafts, Penn worked to create his “Framework of Government”, with the assistance of Thomas Rudyard (especially for the final six drafts), and a small cadre of close friends, among them a “Councillor Bamfield,” who is credited with one of the earliest draft sections of the document.

In August of 1682, Penn left England for the New World for the first time. That same year, a revised edition of “No Cross No Crown” was printed. In it, Penn enlarged upon the original publication, treating exhaustively upon the particular sins of pride, avarice, and luxury. Prior to his departure, Penn evidently gave a copy to an intermediary, Dorothy Bradford, for his friend Bamfield.

William Penn signed book, “No Cross, No Crown. A Discourse Showing the Nature and Discipline of the Holy Cross of Christ…. London: Printed for Mark Swaner…1682.”

Period calf, gilt-lettered red label to spine. Some toning and thumbing to leaves, old repairs at joints. Lancelot Holland (bookplate).

Penn writes, “Gave to Dorothy Bradford for Councilor Bamfield, from the Author”

To say that this is a great rarity would be an understatement. We’ve never before seen a book signed by Penn, no less one on Quakerism. And a search of public sale records going back over seventy years fails to turn up even one.