Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania Read Online Free PDF Page B

British, even though from 1649 to 1660, England itself was a commonwealth, rather than a monarchy. (The Brits beheaded Charles I to do it.)
    The term was commonly used during the American Revolution because it signified that a state’s residents saw themselves as having a government legitimized by the people, rather than by a monarchy.
State or Commonwealth?
    Today, Pennsylvania is one of four U.S. states that still calls itself a “commonwealth.” (The others are Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts.) Pennsylvania’s interchangeability of the terms “commonwealth” and “state” goes back to 1776, when the state’s first constitution used both to refer to itself. Additional state constitutions in 1790, 1838, 1874, and 1968 also used the terms interchangeably.

Rebel with a Cause
    He’s best known as the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania. But did you know that William Penn was once a highborn rebel who got tossed out of school and thrown into jail before his parents finally disowned him?
    I f you want to go back to the beginning of Pennsylvania, there’s only one man to start with: William Penn. He was born in London in 1644, and his father was an English admiral who was friendly with King Charles II. William served as his father’s personal assistant and often delivered military messages to the monarch. That relationship seemed to assure young William’s future as a favorite at court.
Seek and Ye Shall Find
    But William Penn also had a spiritual side. At the time, the Anglican Church was Great Britain’s state church; every citizen belonged to it. But at the age of about 20, Penn strayed from Anglicanism after he heard a talk by Thomas Loe, a Quaker missionary. Unlike Anglicanism, which emphasized loyalty to the church and the monarchy, the Quakers encouraged a direct and personal relationship with God, and believed that a person’s conscience should be his moral authority, not directives from the church or king. Quakers also lived and dressed simply and, instead of formal services, held meetings during which both male and female parishioners meditated in silence until someone was “moved” to speak.
    But there was no freedom of religion in 17th-century England. When he was a student, Penn spoke out at Oxford—attendance at the Anglican chapel was mandatory, and Penn was expelled forprotesting the policy. His irritated father packed him off to school in France in the hopes that he would shape up into a proper young aristocrat. Eventually, William Penn returned to England, studied law, and appeared to be conforming to the mainstream. But at age 22, he shocked his family—and society—by officially becoming a Quaker.
A Plain People
    Despite the Quakers’ peaceful ways, most Anglican authorities considered them to be dangerous, mainly because the Quakers preached that all human beings were equal in the eyes of God. That meant a commoner was as important as a king or queen. Quakers also promoted peace and refused to fight in wars, a stance that brought them persecution in England. The treatment was taken so seriously that the Quaker Act of 1662 made it illegal for anyone to participate in Quaker meetings or refuse to attend Anglican church services.
    In September 1667, William Penn was arrested at a Quaker meeting. Because he was an aristocrat, the police let him go. But when his parents heard the news, they disowned him.
The Champ
    Penn ended up in prison several times for his Quaker activities—he even spent time in a cell in the Tower of London. But he refused to recant his beliefs. Instead, he used his time in prison to write pamphlets about the Quaker faith and religious liberty. His ideas eventually gained a wide audience throughout Europe, and when he lectured, huge crowds gathered to hear him.
    William Penn received a windfall in 1681 when King CharlesII granted him a vast tract of land southwest of New Jersey, encompassing the area