On William Penn's trial (Test Wiki page)

Central Question: What contributed to the not-guilty verdict in William Penn's trial, when most other trials of Quakers that are of the same facts (illegal gathering under the Conventicle Act) all resulted in a guilty verdict.

Structure: 1. Introduction 2. Background (How Quakers are being persecuted and why so) 3. Trials in comparison (Brief description of one typical trial of Quakers that result in imprisonment (I'm now trying to pick one from Horle's book), and Penn's trial) 4. Analysis

1. Crown's attitude (Charles II, need more reading) B. Judge's attitude (Didn't change much I guess) C. *Jury's attitude (Don't know where this is leading to yet, need to read more about William Penn)

5. Beyond the Trial I think it will be too shallow an analysis of the trial and not law-related enough if this paper just end up being an analysis of how charismatic William Penn is. I don't know where I'm going but I guess there should be something to be said about the role of the jury.

Reference

• Thomas Green, Verdict According to Conscience
• Thomas Green, Lights Hidden Under Bushel's Case
• Craig Horle, The Quakers and the English Legal System 1660-1688
• Vincent Buranelli, The King & The Quaker, A Study of William Penn and James II
• Mary Dunn * Richard Dunn, The Wolrd of William Penn

-- DaihuiMeng - 02 Nov 2019