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With the favor William's father enjoyed in Britain's royal court, all William had to do was show himself to be a faithful royalist, and wealth and privilege would be his. Instead he chose to follow his conscience--to expulsion from university, disinheritance, imprisonment, and the threat of death.

In a world where freedoms were subject to the whims of rulers, William Penn worked passionately for religious tolerance. When this Quaker reformer secured a land grant in America, he laid for Pennsylvania a foundation of liberty, justice, fairness, and tolerance that would later guide the drafting of the Constitution of the United States (1644-1718).