PENRY, JOHN (1559-1593), Welsh Puritan, was born in Brecknockshire in 1559; tradition points to Cefn Brith, a farm near Llangammarch, as his birthplace. He was educated at Peter house, Cambridge, and St. Alban's Hall, Oxford. He did not seek episcopal ordination, but was licensed as University The tradition of his preaching tours in Wales is slenderly sup ported ; they could only have been made during a few months of 1586 or the autumn of 1587. At this time ignorance and im morality abounded in Wales. In 1562 an act of parliament had made provision for translating the Bible into Welsh, and the New Testament was issued in '567; but the number printed would barely supply a copy for each parish church.
Indignant at this negligence, Penry published, early in 1587, The Aequity of an Humble Supplication—in the behalf of the country of Wales, that some order may be taken for the preaching of the Gospel among those people. Archbishop Whitgift thereupon caused him to be brought before the High Commission and im prisoned for about a month. On his release Penry married at Northampton, where he lived for some years, and set up a print ing press. It was successively located at East Molesey (Surrey), Fawsley (Northampton), Coventry and other places in Warwick shire, and finally at Manchester, where it was seized in August 1589. On it were printed Penry's Exhortation to the governours
and people of Wales, and View of . . . suck publike wants and disorders as are in the service of God . . . in Wales; as well as the celebrated Martin Marprelate tracts. In January 1590 his house at Northampton was searched and his papers seized, but he succeeded in escaping to Scotland. There he published several tracts, as well as a translation of a learned theological work known as Theses Genevenses.
Returning to England in September 1592, he joined the Separatist Church in London, in which he declined to take office, though after the arrest of the ministers, Francis Johnson and John Greenwood, he seems to have been the regular preacher. He was arrested in March 1593, and efforts were made to find some pretext for a capital charge. Failing this a charge of sedition was based on the rough draft of a petition to the queen that had been found among his private papers ; the language of which was indeed harsh and offensive, but had been neither presented nor published. He was convicted by the Queen's Bench on May 21, 1593, and hanged on the 29th.