Life and Works of Henry King. 229 



haps John King's patrimony, as one of many shares, was not so great 

 as supposed, while the necessity for educating his own large family, 

 for maintaining the state befitting his honorable position in life, 

 and for contributing to his Church, his University, and his sovereign,^ 

 might well account for the very moderate though comfortable circum- 

 stances in which we find Henry King placed. 



John King's promotion in the Church was as rapid as was his 

 academic elevation. It culminated in his consecration as Bishop of 

 London, September 8, 1611.2 Apparently, though this has not been 

 pointed out heretofore, nothing but his early death, ten years later, 

 as compared with the greater longevity of George Abbot^ and Tobias 

 Matthew,* kept him from succeeding one of those two divines as 

 Archbishop of Canterbury or Archbishop of York; for Le Neve's 

 statistics^ seem to show that especially at this time the Bishopric 

 of London was the stepping-stone to an archiepiscopal see, and this 

 translation would have been particularly likely in the case of a prelate 

 enjoying so much popular and ecclesiastical esteem and royal favor 

 as did John King. This fair record is marred by only one possible 

 stain, and this blot doubtless seemed a very meritorious action to 

 his contemporaries and so must be leniently dealt with to-day. For 

 it was John King who "principally managed" the ecclesiastical 

 prosecution of Bartholomew Legate which led to the latter's being 



them plainly he was not beholding to that house nor anie of the Innes 

 of Chauncery, and therefore would not. He is greived it seemes because 

 the gents, of the Innes come and take up roomes in his churche, and pay not, 

 as other his parishioners doe. He is so highly esteemed of his auditors, that 

 when he went to Oxeford" ("perhaps on his proceeding D. D., which he did 

 in this year, 1602" — Bruce s note) "they made a purse for his charges, and 

 at his return rode forth to meete him, and brought him into town with ring- 

 ing, etc."— Another unnoticed reference to John King at this particular 

 date is to be found in John Chamberlain's "Letters during the Reign of 

 EHzabeth," Camden Society, 1861, pp. 143 and 149, with an amusing account 

 of this commencement at Oxford, "very famous, for plentie of doctors, 

 . . . ; for store of venison, whereof Dr. Kinge had 27 buckes for his part ; . . . . 

 for the exceeding assemblie of gentles, but specially for the great confluence 

 of cutpurses, whereof ensued many losses and shrewd turnes," etc. 



^ Cf. Henry King's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, p. 289, inf.; 

 "Alum. West.," 54 ; Fuller, 501 ; and "History of St. Paul's Cathedral," by 

 Sir W. Dugdale, 2d ed., 1716, 140. 



2 Le Neve's "Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanac," ed. Hardy, 1854, II, 303. 



3 Ibid. I, 26. 



'» Ibid. Ill, 116. 



^ Ibid. I, 20—31; II, 292—304; III, 112 — 116. 



