, the nation at large was making no mistake. The people saw
James as he was, and detected his designs upon the liberties of
England. At last, in April, 1688, he issued a Declaration of Indulgence.
He added insult to injury by ordering that it should be read in every
church in the realm. The seven bishops who protested were sent to the
Tower. Then the end came with speed. William of Orange was invited into
England. The nation welcomed him with acclamations. James fled before
him into France, where he lived the remainder of an inglorious life.

This was a hard change for William Penn, and he seems to have done
nothing to make it easier. There were courtiers who passed with
incredible swiftness from one allegiance to the other; he was not among
them. Others fled to France, but he stayed. He was arrested. In his
examination before the Privy Council he declared that he "had done
nothing but what he could answer for before God and all the princes in
the world; that he loved his country and the Protestant religion above
his life, and had never acted against either; that all he had ever aimed
at in his public endeavors was none other than what the king had
declared for [religious liberty]; that King James had always been his
friend, and his father's friend, and that in gratitude he himself was
the king's, and did ever, as much as in him lay, influence him to his
true interest." Penn was released.

The new king began his reign with the Toleration Act, which Parliament
passed in 1688, and from which dates the establishment of actual and
abiding religious liberty in England. Thus Penn's great purpose was
accomplished by one with whom he was not in accord. Sometimes a
political party adopts the projects for which its opponents have long
labored, and carries them out even more vigorously than they had been
planned originally. The initial reformers are glad that their ideals
have been realized, but their zeal must be uncommonly impersonal if the
success brings them quite so much joy as it logically ought. It is not
likely that the Toleration Act filled the soul of William Penn with
great jubilation. Indeed, we know that he insisted to the end of his
life that James, if he had been let alone, would have done all that
William did, and more too, and better.

The years which followed were full of trouble. Macaulay says that in
1689 Penn was plotting against the government; but the evidence does not
suffice to establish the fact. The Pr