252 Laurence Mason, 



King's sermons are doubly important to any student of his life 

 because of the light they cast on the vexed question of his religious 

 opinions, the one blot on his record which must if possible be re- 

 moved before his biography can be fairly closed ; for a last comparison 

 with his father is suggested by the charge of heterodoxy also brought 

 against Henry King, also posthumously, but unhappily not refuted 

 by filial piety in this case. The trouble seems to have been started, 

 or, at least, first stated, by Anthony ci Wood, in his closing remarks 

 about Henry King:^ "What remains to be observ'd of this prelate 

 is, that he was always puritanically affected, and therefore to please 

 the puritans he was promoted to the see of Chichester . . . That 

 being not removed to a better see fi. e., after the Restoration], be- 

 came discontented, as I have heard, and a favorer thereupon of the 

 presbyterians in his diocese." This charge alone does not carry much 

 weight (though it has been repeated by practically ever}' biographer 

 since its first appearance) ,2 for Wood's malicious and scandalous 

 thrusts have considerably discredited his great work,^ even from the 

 very first.* Walker, who incorporated Wood's charges into his own 

 text^ (though with a kind of reservation, already cited in another 

 connection,** and to be mentioned again presently), was thus rebuked 

 by some friendly critic who was apparently reading his proof for 

 him :' "Tho' there be an air of impartiality throughout your whole 



the curious fling at the bhnd Milton, on p. 34 :— "One of them [i. e., one of 

 the "infamous Raylours, whom the Proud Faction kept in pay"], and 

 indeed the most Malicious in the Pack, who calls himself Iconoclastes, so 

 shamelessly rails. That as St. Paul said to Simon Magnus, so might I to him. 

 Thou art in the Gall of Bitterness : And as the Apostle charged Elymas the 

 Sorcerer for Mischief and perverting the Truth ; so it is very memorable This 

 Wretch had the fate of Elymas, Strook with Blindness to his Death." It is 

 also interesting as emphasizing Henry King's firm belief in the royal au- 

 thorship of "Eikon Basilikc." ^ "Athen. Oxon.," Ill, 841. 



- Hannah (1, footnote) very neatly shows how Wood himself contradicts 

 his own charge; for he speaks ("Athen. Oxon.," Ill, 703) of Cheynell's 

 succession to "the rich parsonage of Petworth in Sussex, in the place of an 

 honest and loyal doctor ejected thence." This "honest and loyal doctor" 

 was the supposedly "puritanically affected" Henry King! 



^ E. g., "Diet. Nat. Biog.," Ixii, 351 ; "Wood was himself fond of severe 

 reflections, and all through his work had adopted reckless charges and 

 criticisms from spiteful correspondents"; and cf. pp. 350, 351, pas. 



* "Wood'sLife and Times," ed. A. Clark, 1894, III, 365—496; also "Fasti 

 Oxon.," I, 379, N. I. 5 Op. cit., II, 11, 12. ^ p. 240, sup. 



' "Dr. John Walker and 'The Sufferings of the Clergy,'" by G. B. Tatham, 

 191T, 248. 



