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PENKRIDGE, a town in the western parliamentary division of Staffordshire, England; 134 m. N.W. from London by the London & North-Western railway, on the small river Penk. Pop. (1901), 2347. Trade is chiefly agricultural and there are stone-quarries in the vicinity. The church of St Michael and All Angels, formerly collegiate and dedicated to St Mary, is a fine building principally Perpendicular, but with earlier portions. The Roman Watling Street passes from east to west 3 m. south of Penkridge. In the neighbourhood is Pillaton Hall, retaining a picturesque chapel of the 15th century.

PENLEY, WILLIAM SYDNEY (1852–   ), English actor, was born at Broadstairs, and educated in London, where his father had a school. He first made his mark as a comedian by his exceedingly amusing performance as the curate in The Private Secretary, a part in which he succeeded Beerbohm Tree; but he is even more associated with the title rôle in Brandon Thomas’s Charley’s Aunt (1892), a farce which had an unprecedentedly long run and was acted all over the world.

PENMARC’H, a village of western France in the department of Finistère, 18 m. S.W. of Quimper by road. Pop. (1906), of the village, 387; of the commune, 5702. On the extremity of the peninsula on which it is situated are fortified remains of a town which was of considerable importance from the 14th to the 16th centuries and included, besides Penmarc'h, St Guénolé and Kerity. It owed its prosperity to its cod-banks, the disappearance of which together with the discovery of the Newfoundland cod-banks and the pillage of the place by the bandit La Fontenelle in 1595 contributed to its decadence. The church of St Nouna, a Gothic building of the early 16th century at Penmarc'h, and the church of St Guénolé, an unfinished tower of the 15th century and the church of Kerity (15th century) are of interest. The coast is very dangerous. On the Point de Penmarc'h stands the Phare d'Eckmuhl, with a light visible for 60 miles. There are numerous megalithic monuments in the vicinity.

 PENN, WILLIAM (1621–1670), British admiral, was the son of Giles Penn, merchant and seaman of Bristol. He served his apprenticeship at sea with his father. In the first Civil War he fought on the side of the parliament, and was in command of a ship in the squadron maintained against the king in the Irish seas. The service was arduous and called for both energy and good seamanship. In 1648 he was arrested and sent to London, but was soon released, and sent back as rear admiral in the “Assurance” (32). The exact cause of the arrest is unknown, but it may be presumed to have been that he was suspected of being in correspondence with the king’s supporters. It is highly probable that he was, for until the Restoration he was regularly in communication with the Royalists, while serving the parliament, or Cromwell, so long as their service was profitable, and making no scruple of applying for grants of the confiscated lands of the king’s Irish friends. The character of “mean fellow” given him by Pepys is borne out by much that is otherwise known of him. But it is no less certain that he was an excellent seaman and a good fighter. After 1650 he was employed in the Ocean, and in the Mediterranean in pursuit of the Royalists under Prince Rupert. He was so active on this service that when he returned home on the 18th of March 1651 he could boast that he had not put foot on shore for more than a year. When the first Dutch War broke out Penn was appointed vice-admiral to Blake, and was present at the battle of the 28th of September off the Kentish Knock. In the three days' battle off Portland, February 1653, he commanded the Blue squadron, and he also served with distinction in the final battles of the war in June and July. In December he was included in the commission of admirals and generals at sea, who exercised the military command of the fleet, as well as “one of the commissioners for ordering and managing the affairs of the admiralty and navy.” In 1654 he offered to carry the fleet over to the king, but in October of the same year he had no scruple in accepting the naval command in the expedition to the West Indies sent out by Cromwell, which conquered Jamaica. He was not responsible for the shameful repulse at San Domingo, which was due to a panic among the troops. On their return he and his military colleague Venables were sent to the Tower. He made humble submission, and when released retired to the estate he had received from confiscated land in Ireland. He continued in communication with the Royalists, and in 1660 had a rather obscure share in the Restoration. He was reappointed commissioner of the navy by the king, and in the second Dutch War served as “great captain commander” or captain of the fleet, with the duke of York (afterwards King James II.) at the battle of Lowestoft (June 3, 1665). When the duke withdrew from the command, Penn’s active service ceased. He continued however to be a commissioner of the navy. His death occurred on the 16th of September 1670, and he was buried in the church of St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. His portrait by Lely is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. By his wife Margaret Jasper, he was the father of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Though Sir William Penn was not a high-minded man, he is a figure of considerable importance in British naval history. As admiral and general for the parliament he helped in 1653 to draw up the first code of tactics provided for the navy. It was the base of the “Duke of York’s Sailing and Fighting Instructions,” which continued for long to supply the orthodox tactical creed of the navy.

PENN, WILLIAM (1644–1718), English Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania, son of (1621–1670) and Margaret Jasper, a Dutch lady, was born at Tower Hill, London, on the 14th of October 1644. During his father’s absence at sea he lived at Wanstead in Essex, and went to school at Chigwell close by, in which places he was brought under strong Puritan influences. Like many children of sensitive temperament, he had times of spiritual excitement; when about twelve he was “suddenly surprised with an inward comfort, and, as he thought, an external glory in the room, which gave rise to religious emotions, during which he had the strongest conviction of the being of a God, and that the soul of man was capable of enjoying communication with Him.” Upon the death of Cromwell, Penn’s father, who had served the Protector because there was no other career open, remained with his family on the Irish estates which Cromwell had given him, of the value of £300 a year. On the resignation of Richard Cromwell he at once declared for the king and went to the court in Holland, where he was received into favour and knighted; and at the elections for the convention parliament he was returned for Weymouth. Meanwhile young Penn studied under a private tutor on Tower Hill until, in October 1660, he was entered as a gentleman commoner at Christ Church. He appears in the same year to have contributed to the Threnodia, a collection of elegies on the death of the young duke of Gloucester.

The rigour with which the Anglican statutes were revived, and the Puritan heads of colleges supplanted, roused the spirit of resistance at Oxford to the uttermost. With this spirit Penn, who was on familiar terms with John Owen (1616–1683), and who had already fallen under the influence of Thomas Loe the Quaker, then at Oxford, actively sympathized. He and others refused to attend chapel and church service, and were fined in consequence. How far his leaving the university resulted from this cannot be clearly ascertained. Anthony Wood has nothing regarding the cause of his leaving, but says that he stayed at Oxford for two years, and that he was noted for proficiency in manly sports. There is no doubt that in January 1662 his father was anxious to remove him to Cambridge, and consulted Pepys on the subject; and in later years he speaks of being “banished” the college, and of being whipped, beaten and turned out of doors on his return to his father, in the anger of the latter at his avowed Quakerism. A reconciliation, however, was effected; and Penn was sent to France to forget this