1893 text
George Penn, the elder brother of Sir W. Penn, was a wealthy merchant at San Lucar, the port of Seville. He was seized as a heretic by the Holy Office, and cast into a dungeon eight feet square and dark as the grave. There he remained three years, every month being scourged to make him confess his crimes. At last, after being twice put to the rack, he offered to confess whatever they would suggest. His property, 12,000l., was then confiscated, his wife, a Catholic, taken from him, and he was banished from Spain for ever. — M. B.
This text comes from a footnote on a diary entry in the 1893 edition edited by Henry B. Wheatley.
2 Annotations
First Reading
Michael Robinson • Link
Per L&M Companion:
(c. 1601-1664). Merchant; Sir William's elder brother. He lived for many years in Spain. In 1643 he was arrested by the Inquisition in Seville and kept for three years in close confinement. According to a petition he addressed to the English government in 1659 he had been tortured, his property to a value of over 10,000 L confiscated, and his wife, a native of Antwerp, divorced from him and married off to a Spaniard. His nephew, William, the Quaker, was hoping to obtain compensation from the Spanish authorities at the time of the negotiations for the Treaty of Utrecht in 1712-13.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"To his Highness the Lord Protector [Richard Cromwell] of the three Nations, England, Scotland, and Ireland, together with the adjacent parts thereunto belonging.
"The humble Remonstrance of George Penn, merchant, containing the tyrannical proceedings of the Spaniards in their Inquisition : as also his own miserable sufferings by many torments upon the rack, and otherwise: as also their accusations of him; together with their sentences upon his person, and confiscation of above ten thousand pounds of his and other men's found in his custody, which he is liable to pay. The attestation of its truth by eye and ear-witnesses I have to present; https://books.google.com/books?id…