. This extreme feeling against Penn is
reflected in Macaulay's "History of England," which strongly espouses
the Whig side; and in those vivid pages Penn is represented, and very
unfairly, as nothing less than a scoundrel.

In spite of the attempts which James made to secure his position, the
dissenters, the Church of England, and Penn's own Quakers all joined
heart and soul in the Revolution of 1688, which quickly dethroned the
King, drove him from England, and placed the Prince of Orange on
the throne as William III. Penn was now for many years in a very
unfortunate, if not dangerous, position, and was continually suspected
of plotting to restore James. For three years he was in hiding to escape
arrest or worse, and he largely lost the good will and affection of the
Quakers.

Meantime, since his departure from Pennsylvania in the summer of
1684, that province went on increasing in population and in pioneer
prosperity. But Penn's quitrents and money from sales of land were far
in arrears, and he had been and still was at great expense in starting
the colony and in keeping up the plantation and country seat he had
established on the Delaware River above Philadelphia. Troublesome
political disputes also arose. The Council of eighteen members which he
had authorized to act as governor in his absence neglected to send the
new laws to him, slighted his letters, and published laws in their own
name without mentioning him or the King. These irregularities were much
exaggerated by enemies of the Quakers in England. The Council was not a
popular body and was frequently at odds with the Assembly.

Penn thought he could improve the government by appointing five
commissioners to act as governor instead of the whole Council. Thomas
Lloyd, an excellent Quaker who had been President of the Council and who
had done much to allay hard feeling, was fortunately the president of
these commissioners. Penn instructed them to act as if he himself were
present, and at the next meeting of the Assembly to annul all the laws
and reenact only such as seemed proper. This course reminds us of the
absolutism of his friend, King James, and, indeed, the date of these
instructions (1686) is that when his intimacy with that bigoted monarch
reached its highest point. Penn's theory of his power was that the frame
or constitution of government he had given the province was a contract;
that, the Council and Assembly having violated some of its provisions,