June 1720, Belgium

June 23, 1720- William Penn, sixth son of Pennsylvania founder William Penn & Gulielma Maria Springett, dies at the age of 46, two years after the death of his father.
Young William had eventually left the Society of Friends. He visited Pennsylvania once, in 1704, where his high living greatly disturbed his father. On his death-bed he is said to have declared that he regretted the wrongs he had done.
As a marriage settlement, William Penn, Sr. had made over to young William the Irish estate of Shanagarry in Cork, entailing it on his male heirs. In 1666, the estate reputedly was worth £1000 a year. On his mother's death in 1694, Warminghurst in Sussex had become his by inheritance from her, and on young William's marriage, he and his wife appear to have taken up residence there, his father and stepmother moving to Bristol.

William came to Philadelphia without his wife, arriving in February 1704, with John Evans, who had been commissioned Lieutenant Governor by the Founder. His stay was not a success and was brief. After disposing of some of the Pennsylvania land given him by his father, he was back in England by mid-January, 1705. He and his wife lived at Warminghurst until it was sold in 1707, then apparently rented properties until his father's death in 1718. He unsuccessfully sought a political career in seeking a seat in Parliament, and appears to have left the upbringing and expenses of his children to his stepmother. In 1719, following the death of his father, he made an unsuccessful attempt to get the Pennsylvania Assembly to acknowledge his claim as chief Proprietor and heir-at-law. Irresponsible and unstable, he died in Liége, Belgium in 1720, of consumption.

Earlier the same year, on February 14, 1720, his daughter Gulielma Maria Penn had married first husband Aubrey Thomas at St. Mary Magdalen Church, on Fish Street, in London.

(William Penn is my third cousin 9 times removed. Gulielma Maria Penn is my fourth cousin 8 times removed. Our common ancestors are Pletjes Driessen & Alet Gobels Syllys.)