The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Daily entries from the 17th century London diary

Admiral William Penn

1893 text

This is the first mention in the Diary of Admiral (afterwards Sir William) Penn, with whom Pepys was subsequently so particularly intimate. At this time admirals were sometimes styled generals. William Penn was born at Bristol in 1621, of the ancient family of the Penns of Penn Lodge, Wilts. He was Captain at the age of twenty-one; Rear-Admiral of Ireland at twenty-three; Vice-Admiral of England and General in the first Dutch war, at thirty-two. He was subsequently M.P. for Weymouth, Governor of Kingsale, and Vice- Admiral of Munster. He was a highly successful commander, and in 1654 he obtained possession of Jamaica. He was appointed a Commissioner of the Navy in 1660, in which year he was knighted. After the Dutch fight in 1665, where he distinguished himself as second in command under the Duke of York, he took leave of the sea, but continued to act as a Commissioner for the Navy till 1669, when he retired to Wanstead, on account of his bodily infirmities, and dying there, September 16th, 1670, aged forty-nine, was buried in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, in Bristol, where a monument to his memory was erected.

16 Annotations

Jenny Doughty   Link to this

More about Admiral William Penn can be found on this page of Penn family history:

http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~rstephen/livingeasto...

David Brown   Link to this

Pennsylvania is actually named in honour of Admiral Penn - rather than his now more famous son.

PHE   Link to this

William Penn's memorial at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, can still be seen.

Sjoerd Spoelstra   Link to this

Charles II's Hat

Charles II once encountered the famed Quaker William Penn, whose faith prohibited him from removing his hat - as etiquette demanded of anyone in the monarch's presence. When, having exchanged niceties, Penn's hat remained firmly ensconced upon his head, the king - with a graceful flourish - removed his own. "Friend Charles," the Quaker said, "why dost thou uncover thyself?" "Friend Penn," the king replied, "in this place it is the custom for only one man at a time to keep his hat on."

Charles II, (1630-1685) English monarch; king of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1660-85)

[Sources: I. Poley, Friendly Anecdotes]

David Quidnunc   Link to this

John Aubrey on William Penn & his son

From Aubrey's Brief Lives (the edition edited by Oliver Lawson Dick; bracketed words are mine):

"William Penn [born 1644] was the eldest son of Sir William Penn ...

"His Majestie owing to his [the younger Penn's] father 10,000 pounds (which, with the interest of it, came not to lesse than 20,000 pounds) [L&M Companion volume says 16,000 pounds] did in consideration therof grant to him and his heirs a province in America which his Majesty was pleased to name Pennsylvania the 4th day of March 1681.

"Sir William Penn, Knight, his father, was a man of excellent naturall abilities, not equalled in his time for the knowledge of navall affayres: and instrumentall to the raysing of many families. Bred his son religiously; and, as the times grew loose, would have his sonn of the fashioon, and was therfore extreme bitter at his sonne's retirement. But this lasted not alwayes; for, in the conclusion of his life, he grew not only kind, but fonde; made him the judge and ruler of his Family; was sorry he had no more to leave him (and yet, in England and Ireland, he left him 1500 pounds per annum). But, which is most remarkeable, he that opposed his sonne's way because of the crosse that was in it to the world's Latitude, did himselfe embrace his faith, recommending to his son the plainesse and selfe deniall of it, sayeing, **Keep to the plainesse of your way, and you will make an end of the Priests to the ends of the Earth.** And so he deceased, desiring that none but his son William should close his eies (which he did).

claudie garon   Link to this

please, can-you translate your "site"
internet in French ? because my son search informations on sir William Pen's, for his english lesson and we never found french version to reach informations... I speak just a litle english, I wrote just a little to...
And my son he's learning english, so i don't know how to make!!! thank you very much. we're love England!

vicente   Link to this

"...
To Ye Just Memory of Sr. William Penn, Kt & Sometimes Generall;
borne at Bristol In 1621 son of Captain Giles
Penn severall years consul for ye English in ye Mediterranean of the Penns of Penn Lodge in the County of Wilts & those Penns of Penn in ye County of Bucks & by his Mother from ye Gilberts in ye County of Somerset, Originally of Yorkshire. Addicted from his youth to maritime affairs he was made Captain at ye years of 21. Rear-Admirall of Ireland at 23, Vice Admirall of Ireland at 24. Admirall to ye. Straightes at 29. Vice Admirall of England at 31 a Generall in ye First Dutch Warres at 32 whence retiring in Ano.1665.
..."

The Will of Admiral Sir William Penn
6th October 1670

Pen will, shows sonne and daughter
http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~rstephen/livingeasto...

Pauline   Link to this

from L&M Companion (partial)
kt 1660 (1621-70). Navy Commissioner 1660-9. Bristol sea-captain and bred to the sea from an early age. Penn was (with Batten, to whom he had once been apprenticed) the most experienced seaman among Pepys's colleagues....he accepted a knighthood from Henry Cromwell in 1658. In the following year he went to England hoping for a naval appointment from the Rump. Monck gave him charge of the preparation of the fleet which sailed to bring home the king from exile. He was on board Sandwich's ship, and soon had made himself known to the duke of York. Probably at the Duke's request he presented a memorandum in June 1660 to the king about the government of the navy, which shows a considerable knowledge of administrative detail. In it he expounded the advantages of government in the Commonwealth manner by commissioners acting collectively and without rigidly defined duties. The reconstituted Navy Board set up shortly afterwards showed several traces of this advice and he was himself made a Commissioner. At about the same time he drew up for the Duke a new version of the Admiral's Instructions, issued later, in Jan. 1662. Pepys, who probably resented Penn's superior knowledge and his intimacy with the Duke, has hardly a good word to say for him either as a colleague or as a person....

Nix   Link to this

The Penn/Pepys Relationship --

From the article on Penn in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

"Penn came into residence at the Navy Office in Seething Lane on 27 July 1660, thus becoming a neighbour of his junior colleague Pepys, in whose diary the last phases of Penn's career are sharply described. Pepys, although welcoming Penn as

Cumgranissalis   Link to this

Penn before he was sidelined, or rusticated by Cromwell in 1656, for letting Venables [Col./Gen.] make a hash out of removing Hispanola from the Spanish crown, had a taste of Tower of London's hospitality suite, Venables appears to have been a disaster of the first order the epitomy of ineptness, and Penn received some of the backlash. S. Pepys may not understand some of Pens comments on fellow titled leftovers from the Cromwell period.
The story of how 2000 plus soldiers failed to capture Santa Domingo, defended by a few undernourished Islanders, is a good study of a combined ops.
Penns attitude, after this discovery of this classic in generalship and the rewards, I can be empathic with Sir Wm..

Terry F   Link to this

Another take on "Admiral Sir William Penn(b.1621 - d.1670)

"Penn was born, married and buried in Bristol. He was Cromwell's Sea General who was responsible, with General Venables, for the British capture of Jamaica in 1655. Jamaica became the base for British slavery and piracy and for British colonial expansion in the West (see Port Royal). Admiral Penn had also been rewarded for his services in Ireland to the Cromwellian Commonwealth with a castle and a confiscated estate in Ireland (1656, Macroom Castle). An interesting fact, which speaks of the continual duplicity of the Penn family, is that the Coat of Arms which appears with his battle armour at St Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol is a fraud. The Admiral and the Penn family were not entitled to use the Coat of Arms which belonged to the Penns of Penn in Buckinghamshire. The Admiral and his family merely appropriated the Coat of Arms just as they had appropriated their Irish estate and African slaves for themselves and the isle of Jamaica for England. William Penn, the Admiral's son, was to take this appropriation further with his proprietorship of Pennsylvania." http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~rstephen/livingeasto...

Pedro   Link to this

For Penn's involvement in Jamiaca see...

http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/5930/

Pedro   Link to this

30th December 1650.

Captain Penn’s squadron sailed from Falmouth to attack the Portuguese at sea. He took 36 prizes in the Atlantic.

Terry F   Link to this

"Admiral William Penn....loaned large sums to the King's ambitious building programme but, after his death, the cash strapped King could not repay the loan, when requested to do so by Penn's son (also named William). So the monarch offered him land in America instead, provided that it would be named after the favoured late Admiral. Thus the state of Pennsylvania came into being. Its [fraudulent] arms still incorporate those of the man whose name it bears." http://www.history.uk.com/articles/index.php?ar...

Pedro   Link to this

For Penn's grandson Granville Penn's Memorial to his grandfather, see site posted by JWB...

http://books.google.com/books?id=BUg2AAAAMAAJ&p...

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