Affairs now again demanded his presence in England. The king had in 1701 written to urge upon the Pennsylvania government a union with other private colonies for defence, and had asked for money for fortifications. The difficulty felt by the Crown in this matter was a natural one. A bill was brought into the lords to convert private into Crown colonies. Penn's son appeared before the committee of the house and managed to delay the matter until his father's return. On Sept. 15, Penn called the assembly to gether, in which the differences between the province and the terri tories again broke out. He succeeded, however, in calming them, appointed a council of ten to manage the province in his absence, and gave a borough charter to Philadelphia. In May 1700, experi ence having shown that alterations in the charter were advisable, the assembly had, almost unanimously, requested Penn to revise it. On Oct. 28, 1701 he handed it back to them in the form in which it afterwards remained. An assembly was to be chosen yearly, of four persons from each county, with all the self-governing privileges of the English House of Commons. Two-thirds were to form a quorum. The nomination of sheriffs, coroners and magis trates for each county was given to the governor, who was to select from names handed in by the freemen. Moreover, the coun cil was no longer elected by the people, but nominated by the governor, who was thus practically left single in the executive. The assembly, however, which, by the first charter, had not the right to propound laws, but might only amend or reject them, now acquired that privilege. In other respects the original charter remained, and the inviolability of conscience was again emphat ically asserted. Penn reached England in December 1701. He once more assumed the position of leader of the Dissenters and himself read the address of thanks for the promise from the Throne to maintain the Act of Toleration. He now took up his abode again at Kensington, and published while here his More Fruits of Solitude.
In 1703 he went to Knightsbridge, where he remained until 1706, when he removed to Brentford, his final residence being taken up in 1710 at Field Ruscombe, near Twyford. In 1704 he wrote his Life of Bulstrode Whitelocke. He had now much trouble from America. The territorialists were openly rejecting his authority, and doing their best to obstruct all business in the assembly; and matters were further embarrassed by the injudicious conduct of Governor John Evans in 1706. Moreover, pecuniary troubles came heavily upon him, while the conduct of his son William, who became the ringleader of all the dissolute characters in Phila delphia, was another and still more severe trial. This son was married, and had a son and daughter, but appears to have been left entirely out of account in the settlement of Penn's proprietary rights on his death.
Penn's deficiency in judgment of ,character was especially shown in the choice of his steward Ford, from whom he had borrowed money, and who, by dexterous swindling, had managed, at the time of his death, to establish, and hand down to his widow and son, a claim for £14,000 against Penn. Penn, however, refused to pay, and spent nine months in the Fleet rather than give way. He was released at length by his friends, who paid £7,500 in composition of all claims. Difficulties with his government of Pennsylvania continued to harass him. Fresh disputes took place with Lord Baltimore, the owner of Maryland, and Penn also felt deeply what seemed to him the ungrateful treatment which he met with at the hands of the assembly. He therefore in 1710 wrote, in earnest and affectionate language, an address to his "old friends," setting forth his wrongs. So great was the effect which this produced that the assembly which met in October of that year was entirely in his interests ; revenues were properly paid ; the disaffected were silenced and complaints were hushed ; while an advance in moral sense was shown by the fact that a bill was passed prohibiting the importation of negroes. This, however, when submitted to the British parliament, was cancelled. Penn now, in February 1712, being in failing health, proposed to surrender his powers to the Crown. The commission of plantations recommended that Penn should receive £12,000 in four years from the time of surrender, Penn stipulating only that the queen should take the Quakers under her protection; and £i,000 was given him in part payment. Be fore, however, the matter could go further he was seized with apoplectic fits, which shattered his understanding and memory. A second attack occurred in 1713. He died on July 3o, 1718, leaving three sons by his second wife, John, Thomas and Richard, and was buried along with his first and second wives at Jourdans meeting-house, near Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire. In I790 the proprietary rights of Penn's descendants were bought up for a pension of £4,000 a year to the eldest male descendant by his second wife, and this pension was commuted in 1884 for the sum of £67,000.
Penn's Life was written by Joseph Besse, and prefixed to the col lected edition of Penn's Works (1726). The Selected Works were published again in 1771 (4th ed. 3 vols., 1825), and Some Fruits of Solitude was reprinted in 19oo with an introduction by Edmund Gosse. See Selections from the Works of William Penn (ed. I. Sharp less, and ed., 1915). W. Hepworth Dixon's biography, refuting Macaulay's charges, appeared in 1851. In 2907 Mrs. Colquhoun Grant, one of Penn's descendants, published Quaker and Courtier; the Life and Work of William Penn. See also J. W. Graham, William Penn (2nd ed., 1918).