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CHAPTER I.

FATHER AND SON.

DMIRAL PENN, the distinguished father of an illustrious son, was born in the year 1621. That father was son of Giles Penn, the master of a merchant vessel; who traded in the Levant, and was familiar with the seaports of Portugal and Spain. He had with him on his voyages the future admiral, instructing him in seafaring duties, down to those most menial. The youth took to nautical pursuits with a sort of second nature, and felt that passion for enterprise on the deep which is the secret of success in naval careers. Increasing knowledge, growing skill, with native courage and decision of character, gave pledges of eminence in seamanship; and there could be no doubt that young William, for that was his christian name, would make a mark amongst his fellow-men. The merchant service could not satisfy his ambition, and therefore he entered the Royal Navy, and was so fortunate as to be made a Captain in 1642, having only just come of age. The fortunate young sailor next year married a Dutch lady, and the happy couple took lodgings near the Tower. "Your late honoured father," said Gibson to the famous quaker long afterwards, "dwelt upon Great Tower Hill, on the east side, within a court adjoining to

London Wall;"1-a precise description which brings the locality before us-and if it applies to this early residence in the neighbourhood, we may see the new captain, full of life and spirits, in sailor uniform, coming out of the court and stepping into the Trinity House hard by, where his father might have business to transact; or pushing in a boat up the silent highway of the Thames to the Admiralty, in Duke Street, Westminster, where he would have business of his own. So lucky was he, that in a year after his marriage, he rose to be a Rear-Admiral, and would feel that sense of personal importance which, it is proverbial, such gentlemen generally feel as they first put their feet on the ladder of promotion. In the autumn of that year, the 14th of October, 1644, a little boy was born in the court adjoining London Wall, filling the house with joy and gladness.

Just then England was in a very excited state. The battle of Marston Moor had been fought in the previous summer, the country was plunging deeper still into civil strife, King Charles I. had been virtually dethroned, and parliamentary power had leaped into the saddle, the armies of the royalist and country party were marching up and down the land to the terror of quiet citizens, and no one could tell how the strife would end. For a soldier there was no helphe must take one side or the other. But a sailor could stand aloof. The navy had only to do with England's enemies, to fight with Holland and Spain; it had no business to interfere between patriots and partisans of the crown. England's lordship of the

1 Sir William Penn's "Life," vol. ii. p 615.

seas was in the hands of the High Admiral, Lord Warwick, and other Admirals had only to obey his orders. "It is not for us to mind state affairs," said Blake, then the foremost sailor of his day, "but to keep foreigners from fooling us." In that sentiment Captain Penn agreed with him, though perhaps he had rather a strong leaning towards royalism.

Penn had to leave England just after his son had come into the world, and for a good while was cruising about, and meeting with adventure, in distant climes, whilst the Dutch wife and the little boy were living at Wanstead, in Essex, whither they removed soon after the father had gone to sea.

Wanstead was then a remarkable place, and so was Chigwell, close by it; with these two villages the child would become acquainted as he grew up to boyhood, and I cannot help thinking that his life there for about eleven years had much more to do with his after-life than Penn's biographers have been wont to think. Old Wanstead House was in its glory. It had been rebuilt by Lord Chancellor Rich, had received Queen Mary just before her coronation, had been visited by Queen Elizabeth for four or five days, and had witnessed the marriage of the Earl of Leicester with the Countess of Essex,-the bridegroom being at the time lord and master of the domain. The splendour of the mansion might be on the wane when the Admiral's wife went to live in the vicinity, but still it would be the talk of the neighbours-an object of curiosity and pride. Old Wanstead Church, very different from the present building, would also be of some interest; for there puritan feeling ran very high, and disputes between the old and the new