William Penn, Quaker leader, Pennsylvania proprietor and political activist, spent his childhood years in the shadow of the English Civil Wars and the Interregnum, a period in which England was in the middle of a religious and political trauma so sweeping that its effects would be felt into the next century and across the Atlantic. To what extent those years informed his political and religious outlook is the main issue addressed in this essay. It argues that Penn was not only imbued with republican ideas from his formative years but was often at the centre of political and religious debates that carried over from the first half of the seventeenth century into and beyond the Restoration period. Also, this essay extends the discussion of his career with reference to the current historiography on the era of the Interregnum and the Restoration. For instance, when placed in the context of what historians have come to consider ‘Atlantic history’, Penn's colonizing activities in Pennsylvania add a dimension to what John Morrill has called ‘the British problem’.

Born into a family of means and influence, Penn seemed bound to play a significant part in English politics and society. His father, Sir William, was a prominent figure during the Interregnum and the Restoration, and on his death his son inherited a yearly sum of £1,500 in addition to estates in England and Ireland.