Pennington, Isaac

Isaac Penington, the eldest of the children of Robert and Judith Penington, was born in 1588, as he was 40 years old at the death of his father in 1628. Isaac Pennington succeeded to all this father’s lands and tenements in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and also followed in the elder Pennington’s footsteps as an extensive London merchant.

Being possessed of large means, Isaac Pennington devoted much of his time to civic and political affairs. He was first chosen an Alderman. In 1638 he was made High Sheriff of London. In 1640 he was elected Member of Parliament for the City, and became a leader in the House. He was made Lord Mayor of London in 1643 , and subsequently was appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Tower. Having been Knighted by the Speaker of the House of Commons, he was commissioned, in 1649, a member of the Council of State.

Of Sir Isaac Pennington’s remarkable career under the Protectorate, an English writer has said:

He represented the City in the Long Parliament, and was the Rothschild of the Roundheads. When money was wanted in the early years of the war, application was generally made to the city through Alderman Pennington. If the Houses were showing courage and faithfulness to the Cause, the Alderman promised money, and once offered a guard of 300 citizens, but when compromise about Stafford was in the air, the money was withheld.

Penington was Lord Mayor the year the war broke out, and when there seemed danger of peace being made in 1643, it was he who as Lord Mayor helped to organize mob violence to terrify the peace party. When the House found it necessary for its safety against Army Plots to have the Tower in trusty keeping, Alderman Pennington was made it’s Governor.

He was a member of the High Court of Justice who tried the King. He was knighted by the Speaker and became a member of that Council of State which undertook the difficult organization of the infant Commonwealth. He was what was called a "Parliament Grandee," one of the revolutionary nobility for twenty years.

As stated in the above quotation, Isaac Pennington was one of the Commissioners of the High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I, but did not sign the warrant for the King’s execution. He was, however, recognized as one of the "Regicides," and, following the Restoration, he was, in 1660, arrested and committed to the Tower, and his estates were confiscated. He was sentenced to death, but, before the decree could be carried out, Pennington died in the Tower, from ill usage, December 17, 1661.