HENRY KING, Bishop of Chichester,


The eldest son of Dr. John King lord bishop of London, whom Winstanley
calls a person well fraught with episcopal qualities, was born at
Wornal in Bucks, in the month of January 1591. He was educated partly
in grammar learning in the free school at Thame in Oxfordshire, and
partly in the College school at Westminster, from which last he was
elected a student in Christ Church 1608[1], being then under the
tuition of a noted tutor. Afterwards he took the degrees in arts, and
entered into holy orders, and soon became a florid preacher, and
successively chaplain to King James I. archdeacon of Colchester,
residentiary of St. Paul's cathedral, canon and dean of Rochester, in
which dignity he was installed the 6th of February 1638. In 1641, says
Mr. Wood, he was made bishop of Chichester, being one of those persons
of unblemished reputation, that his Majesty, tho' late, promoted to
that honourable office; which he possessed without any removal, save
that by the members of the Long Parliament, to the time of his death.

When he was young he delighted much in the study of music and poetry,
which with his wit and fancy made his conversation very agreeable, and
when he was more advanced in years he applied himself to oratory,
philosophy, and divinity, in which he became eminent.

It happened that this bishop attending divine service in a church at
Langley in Bucks, and hearing there a psalm sung, whose wretched