IV.— THE LIFE AND WORKS OF HENRY KING, D.D. 



Bv Lawrence Mason, Ph.D. 



BIOGRAPHY. 



I. ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 



Henry King was sprung from distinguished forebears. He claimed 

 descent from the ancient Saxon kings of Devonshire, and though 

 Wood rather ridiculed this idea/ the Herald's College did not question 

 the family's right to the use of the appropriate armorial bearings.^ 

 However this may be, the eminence of Henry King's ancestors in 

 the sixteenth century was considerable. For a great-grand-uncle, 

 Robert, was last Abbot of Osney and first Bishop of Oxford .^ A grand- 

 father, Phihp, was "sometimes page to Henry the Vlllth."^ Inter- 

 marriage with families of title or estate was common.* And perhaps 

 the most notable among the many prominent scions of the race, 

 namely, Henry King's own father, now remains for more extended 

 mention. 



John King, one of Philip's twelve children .^ was born in or about 

 the year 1559® at Worminghall or Wormenhale, "commonly called 

 Wornal,"' in Buckinghamshire. Proceeding from Westminster 

 School to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1576, he there in due course of 

 time accumulated the various degrees of B. A. (1579), M. A. (1582), 

 B.D. (1591), and D.D. (1601 or 1602), as well as becoming Proctor 

 of the University (1589) and Dean of Christ Church (1605) and then 

 for four years (1607— 1610) Vice-Chancellor of the Universit}-,^ — truly 



1 "Athenae Oxonienses," ed. Bliss, 1815, II, 774, 775. 



2 " Poems and Psalms, by Henry King," ed. Hannah, 1843, ii and footnote. 

 ^ " The Church History of Britain," by Thomas Fuller, ed. Brewer, 184^^ 



V, 499- 



* " Athen. Oxon.," II. 294 ; Hannah, op. cit., iii and Appendix A. 



5 Hannah, Ibid. 



® If he died in 1621, aged 62, as Wood says; "Athen. Oxon.," II, 296. 



' Wood, Ibid. 



^ " Fasti Oxon.," ed. Bliss, I, 212, 221, 257, 292, 248, 320, 324, 333, 307 . 

 "Alumni Westmonasterienses," new ed., 1852, pp. 53, 54, His election to 

 the Deanery was a marked honor, for he seems to have been called to Christ 

 Church by popular demand in a special petition to King James signed bv 

 thirty-two representative undergraduates ; in this petition he was described 

 as " clarissimum lumen Anglicanae ecclesiae " ("Athen. Oxon.," n^ 201;) 



