PENANG or PRINCE OF WALES ISLANDS (91), a small fertile island near the northern opening of the Straits of Malacca, off the Malay coast, and 360 m.  NW. of Singapore; is one of the British Straits Settlements, of value strategically; it is hilly, and covered with vegetation; the population are half Chinese, a fourth of them Malays; figs, spices, and tobacco are exported.  The capital is GEORGETOWN (25), on the island.  PROVINCE WELLESLEY (97), on the mainland, belongs to the same settlement; it exports tapioca and sugar.  The DINDINGS (2), 80 m.  S., are another dependency.

PENATES, the name given by the Romans to their household deities, individually and unitedly, in honour of whom a fire, in charge of the vestal virgins, was kept permanently burning.

PENDA, a Mercian king of the 7th century, who headed a reactionary movement of heathenism against the domination of Christianity in England, and for a time seemed to carry all before him, but Christianity, under the preaching of the monks, had gained too deep a hold, particularly in Northumbria, and he was overpowered in 665 in one final struggle and slain.

PENDENNIS, the name of a novel by Thackeray, from the name of the hero, and published in 1849-50 in succession to “Vanity Fair.”

PENDLETON, a NW. suburb of Manchester, in the direction of Bolton, with extensive manufactures and collieries.

PENDRAGON, a title bestowed on kings by the ancient Britons, and especially on the chiefs among them chosen by election, so called from their wearing a dragon on their shields or as a crest in sign of sovereignty.

PENELOPE, the wife of Ulysses, celebrated for her conjugal fidelity during his twenty years’ absence, in the later half of which an army of suitors pled for her hand, pleading that her husband would never return; but she put them all off by a promise of marriage as soon as she finished a web (called after Penelope’s web) she was weaving, which she wove by day and undid at night, till their importunities took a violent form, when her husband arrived and delivered her.

PENINSULAR STATE, the State of Florida, from its shape.

PENINSULAR WAR, a war carried on in Spain and Portugal during the years 1808 and 1814, between the French on the one hand and the Spanish, Portuguese, and British, chiefly under Wellington, on the other, and which was ended by the victory of the latter over the former at Toulouse just after Napoleon’s abdication.

PENITENTIAL PSALMS or PSALMS OF CONFESSION, is a name given from very early times to Psalms vi., xxxii., xxxviii., li., cii., cxxx., which are specially expressive of sorrow for sin.  The name belonged originally to the fifty-first Psalm, which was recited at the close of daily morning service in the primitive Church.

PENITENTS, ORDER OF, a religious order established in 1272 for the reception to the Church of reformed courtesans.