But this new governor clashed almost at once with the Assembly,
tried to make them pass a militia law, suggested that the
province's trade to foreign countries was illegal, persecuted and
arrested members of the Assembly, refused to submit new laws to
it, and irritated the people by suggesting the invalidity of
their favorite laws. The Quaker Assembly withstood and resisted
him until they wore him out. After a year and one month in office
he resigned at Penn's request or, according to some accounts, at
his own request. At any rate, he expressed himself as delighted
to be relieved. As a Puritan soldier he found himself no match
for a peaceable Quaker Assembly.

Penn again made the Council the executive with Thomas Lloyd as
its President. But to the old causes of unrest a new one was now
added. One George Keith, a Quaker, turned heretic and carried a
number of Pennsylvania Quakers over to the Church of England,
thereby causing great scandal. The "Lower Counties" or
Territories, as the present State of Delaware was then called,
became mutinous, withdrew their representatives from the Council,
and made William Markham their Governor. This action together
with the Keithian controversy, the disturbances over Blackwell,
and the clamors of Church of England people that Penn was absent
and neglecting his province, that the Quakers would make no
military defense, and that the province might at any time fall
into the hands of France, came to the ears of King William, who
was already ill disposed toward Penn and distrusted him as a
Jacobite. It seemed hardly advisable to allow a Jacobite to rule
a British colony. Accordingly a royal order suspended Penn's
governmental authority and placed the province under Benjamin
Fletcher, Governor of New York. He undertook to rule in