230 Laivrencc Mason, 



burned at tlie stake in Smithfield, in 1612, for maintaining certain 

 Allan heresies.^ This cruel rigor is perhaps atoned for, in modem 

 eyes, by the courageous firmness with which King oi)i)oscd the divorce 

 of Lady Frances Howard from the Earl of Essex, in 1613, despite 

 the royal and political pressure brought to bear on the commissioners 

 in that trial.^ Nor did he fall short in fulfilling the religious obli- 

 gations of his high office, but "was so frequent, that unless hindered 

 by want of health, he omitted no Sunday whereon he did not visit 

 some pulpit in London or near it."^ 



It was as a preacher that John King was perhai)s most highly 

 praised by his contemporaries. He was appointed by the royal 

 council to preach the funeral sermon over Elizabeth and the wel- 

 coming sermon to James. Honored by being summoned to the Hamp- 

 ton Court Conference, in 1604,* he was doubly honored by being 

 afterwards selected, with three others, to preach before the Scotch 

 Clergy, in 1606.^ King James "commonly called him 'the King of 

 preachers.' And Sir Edward Coke would say of him, 'he was the 

 best speaker in Star Chamber in his time.'"^ These, with other 

 similar testimonials that might be cited, lead us to the conclusion 

 that John King must have been singularly gifted in oral delivery and 

 pulpit presence or magnetism, for his printed sermons seem cold 

 and uninspired e\en after all due historical allowances have been 

 made ; they are certainly well-constructed and learned, with occasional 

 passages of a rather formal and studied eloquence, but while they are 

 distincth- above the average of the various seventeenth century- 



^ Fuller, op. cit., V, 418 — 423 ; Fuller openly applauds and exults, as in 

 this passage: "Bishop King gravelleth him with a place of Scripture (John 

 xvii, 5). This text, I say, was so seasonably alleged, so plainly expounded, 

 so pathetically enforced, by the eloquence and gravity of that bishop, 

 (qualities wherein he excelled,) that it gave marvellous satisfaction to a 

 multitude of people there present," etc. "See here it is neither the pain 

 nor the place, but only the cause makes a martyr . . . Never did a scare- 

 fire at midnight summon more hands to quench it, than this at noon-day 

 did eyes to behold it." 



2 Fuller, op. cit., V, 431, 432; " Historj^ of England, 1603— 1660," by F. 

 C. Montague, 1907, 63, 64; "Progresses of James I," by John Nichols, 1828, 

 II, 726, where the statement in the text, "The Archbishop of Canterburj' 

 was at the Marriage, but not the Bishop of London," is thus supplemented 

 in the foot-note: "These two Prelates, Dr. Abbot and Dr. King, to their 

 immortal honour, had been the chief opposers of the shameless divorce." 



^ Fuller, op. cit., V. 500. * Ibid., p. 266. 



•' Nicl.ols, op. cit., II, 96, 97. ^ Fuller, op. cit., V", 499. 



