Andrew R. Murphy has written a fine, balanced biography of William Penn, the seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Quaker leader, founder of Pennsylvania, and subject of Murphy's earlier, more specific work, Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration: The Political Thought of William Penn (Oxford University Press, 2016). The author's thesis in both books is quite similar, that Penn's primary legacy comprised his struggle for religious liberty in England and related effort to create a colony in North America where “people of different faiths could live together in (relative) harmony and build a society where all worked together for the common good in support of their shared civil interest” (362).
Murphy has expanded on his intense analysis of the writings of Penn and his contemporaries for Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration, carefully using both the microfilm edition of The Papers of William Penn (14 reels; Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1975) and the five-volume select published edition, The Papers of William Penn, edited by Richard S. Dunn and Mary Maples Dunn (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981–1987). His research encompassed additional primary materials and a wide range of pertinent secondary works, placing William Penn securely within the history of early modern England and Anglo-America. By using recent literature and contextual research on Pennsylvania and many relevant topics—from Christ Church (Oxford) and bubonic plague in England, to yellow fever and pirates in Philadelphia—Murphy has fully justified this new comprehensive Penn biography.
As a member of the editorial team of the published Papers of William Penn, I knew that writing Penn's biography would be difficult. Despite Penn's copious correspondence and tracts, many gaps exist in the record such as (and these are just a few) his early life, obtaining the grant from Charles II, Penn's relationship with James II, years in hiding, and rationale in dealings with colonists. The eminent Quaker was also quite inconsistent—or perhaps more accurately did not live up to the expectations of historians that he should be consistent. Scholars three centuries later puzzle over what appeared to be contrary inclinations in his career and life. On the one hand, the idealistic young Penn defied his father Admiral William Penn to become a member of the despised Quakers, went on to become a leading spokesman and defender of the Society of Friends and religious liberty, and designed what he hoped would be a utopian society in North America. On the other hand, Penn negotiated friendship with James II through the monarch's misguided reign, went desperately into debt from lavish spending and careless stewardship of his estate, and watched from the other side of the Atlantic as his colony became engulfed in partisanship and schism.
Thus Murphy took on a challenging project in writing Penn's life and has done an excellent job in illuminating each period, allowing the reader to appreciate the complexity of Penn's career while tracing the proprietor's primary focus on individual freedom within the framework of civic responsibility. Murphy provides a straightforward biography, proceeding from his family background, through early life and convincement, to career as publicist and defender of his adopted faith and founder of Pennsylvania. Murphy's evaluation of Penn as a man and historical figure becomes clear in the epilogue, when he challenges scholars who have tried to pigeonhole Penn in terms of his character and goals and those who have sought to determine the success or failure of his colony. In discussing Penn's legacy, Murphy argues that his “life and career” demonstrate “the inseparability of religion and politics in the early modern world” (360–361). His convincement to Quakerism, for example, was both a religious and political act within the climate of seventeenth-century England. Penn's activism for religious toleration and colonization in North America, though political, was also, Murphy shows, “a religious duty, part of his overriding responsibility to the Inner Light and to the Society of Friends” (361). In addition, Penn's legacy should be appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite nineteenth-century efforts to move his remains from Jordans Friends burial ground in England to a crypt in Philadelphia, Penn was a significant figure in both societies. Murphy also correctly questions scholarly efforts to judge the “success” or “failure” of Penn's “holy experiment” in Pennsylvania (363), noting the more important challenge is to understand how that society developed within the longer history of European colonization, including its religious, political, and economic dynamics, and interaction with American Indians in North America.
