Holland with the King are much more to be dreaded." It does not
appear that Penn mentioned any names. He was suffered to depart
in safety. No active search was made for him. He lay hid in
London during some months, and then stole down to the coast of
Sussex and made his escape to France. After about three years of
wandering and lurking he, by the mediation of some eminent men,
who overlooked his faults for the sake of his good qualities,
made his peace with the government, and again ventured to resume
his ministrations. The return which he made for the lenity with
which he had been treated does not much raise his character.
Scarcely had he again begun to harangue in public about the
unlawfulness of war, when he sent a message earnestly exhorting
James to make an immediate descent on England with thirty
thousand men.39

Some months passed before the fate of Preston was decided. After
several respites, the government, convinced that, though he had
told much, he could tell more, fixed a day for his execution, and
ordered the sheriffs to have the machinery of death in
readiness.40 But he was again respited, and, after a delay of
some weeks, obtained a pardon, which, however, extended only to
his life, and left his property subject to all the consequences
of his attainder. As soon as he was set at liberty he gave new
cause of offence and suspicion, and was again arrested, examined
and sent to prison.41 At length he was permitted to retire,
pursued by the hisses and curses of both parties, to a lonely
manor house in the North Riding of Yorkshire. There, at least, he
had not to endure the scornful looks of old associates who had
once thought him a man of dauntless courage and spotless honour,
but who now pronounced that he was at best a meanspirited coward,