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William Penn (1644-1718) is surely one of the best known Friends from the early years of Quakers. He was born and spent most of his life in England, but is noted for the role he played in early American history. There are a number of different aspects of Penn's life that are noteworthy, and here I will just outline briefly a few of them.
"No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown." - from No Cross, No Crown
Penn was interested in matters of the spirit from his childhood. At the age of twelve he heard a traveling Quaker minister, Thomas Loe. Penn was apparently reached by the message that Loe brought. Penn sought the authentic Christian message, not institutional religion.
When Penn was 16, his father sent him to Oxford University. There he rejected Anglicanism and attended unauthorized prayer meetings. He was expelled for his religious nonconformity. His father then sent him to a Protestant college in France, where he completed his education.
At the age of 23, Penn again crossed paths with Thomas Loe and became a Friend (Quaker). He then wrote Sandy Foundations Shaken, a strident attack on Trinitarian doctrines. He was not yet mature in his faith, and the great twentieth century Quaker writer and scholar Elton Trueblood called this book "controversial and superficial." For writing the book Penn was imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Penn spent his time in the Tower of London productively. There he wrote the first version of his great masterpiece, No Cross, No Crown. This call to Christian discipleship was expanded in later years and has spoken to people over the centuries since. After his release from the Tower, he wrote Innocency with Her Open Face, in which he significantly modified the anti-Trinitarian position he took in his first book. Penn was a prolific writer, and later wrote a number of other works on his Quaker faith.
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