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28 Since the success of the law required local authorities to bring prosecutions, Dissenters also engaged in concerted efforts to elect sympathetic magistrates who could slow (if not clog entirely) the wheels of justice. 29 These months also saw confrontations between Dissenters and magistrates in the streets of London, with government officials calling out trained bands and the local constables, and Dissenters drawing support from those disenchanted with the Anglican establishment. Crowds assaulted and hurled stones at those who attempted to suppress their meetings, and they battled with soldiers in the streets.

The Conventicle Act of 1670 allowed Penn to reflect on the significance of meeting for worship in the spiritual life of the believer, and of the right of religious assembly as a corollary of religious liberty. During the Exclusion Crisis of the late 1670s, he attempted to advance the cause of toleration in part by interrogating the nation’s obsession with “popery” and endorsing the importance of Parliament in safeguarding popular liberties. A decade later, during the reign of James II, he emphasized toleration’s connection with prosperity and the common civil interest shared by Englishmen of all religious affiliations.

His career was fundamentally shaped by the political and religious conflicts of the mid-​seventeenth century and their ongoing ramifications down to 1688. Although he claimed, shortly after arriving in Pennsylvania in 1682, that he was “like to become an adopted American,” Penn spent just under four years in his colony. Viewing Penn primarily as an American “founder,” then, runs the risk of underplaying the degree to which he was shaped by his English intellectual background, physically absent from Pennsylvania, and preoccupied with events in England for most of his political career.