s
not confined to his own disciples. On the morning of the funeral a
great multitude assembled round the meeting house in Gracechurch Street.
Thence the corpse was borne to the burial ground of the sect near
Bunhill Fields. Several orators addressed the crowd which filled the
cemetery. Penn was conspicuous among those disciples who committed the
venerable corpse to the earth. The ceremony had scarcely been finished
when he learned that warrants were out against him. He instantly took
flight, and remained many months concealed from the public eye. [38]

A short time after his disappearance, Sidney received from him a strange
communication. Penn begged for an interview, but insisted on a promise
that he should be suffered to return unmolested to his hiding place.
Sidney obtained the royal permission to make an appointment on these
terms. Penn came to the rendezvous, and spoke at length in his own
defence. He declared that he was a faithful subject of King William and
Queen Mary, and that, if he knew of any design against them, he would
discover it. Departing from his Yea and Nay, he protested, as in the
presence of God, that he knew of no plot, and that he did not believe
that there was any plot, unless the ambitious projects of the French
government might be called plots. Sidney, amazed probably by hearing
a person, who had such an abhorrence of lies that he would not use the
common forms of civility, and such an abhorrence of oaths that he would
not kiss the book in a court of justice, tell something very like a lie,
and confirm it by something very like an oath, asked how, if there were
really no plot, the letters and minutes which had been found on Ashton
were to be explained. This question Penn evaded. "If," he said, "I could
only see the King, I would confess every thing to him freely. I would
tell him much that it would be important for him to know. It is only
in that way that I can be of service to him. A witness for the Crown I
cannot be for my conscience will not suffer me to be sworn." He assured
Sidney that the most formidable enemies of the government were the
discontented Whigs. "The Jacobites are not dangerous. There is not a man
among them who has common understanding. Some persons who came over from
Holland with the King are much more to be dreaded." It does not appear
that Penn mentioned any names. He was suffered to depart in safety. No
active search was made for him. He lay hid in London during some mon