Fourth and Henry the Seventh. He was one of the executors appointed by the widow of the Duke of York (mother of Edward the Fourth), to effectuate the objects of her will; and, immediately after the death of that monarch, was imprisoned in the Tower of London. On the accession of Henry the Seventh, this divine became his Secretary also, and was employed by him in France to negociate a peace with Charles the Eighth, a commission which he executed with great success. From the Deanery of Windsor he was advanced in 1492 to the See of Exeter, whence he was translated in 1495 to that of Bath, which he retained until his decease in 1503. While in the latter diocese, he immortalized his name by commencing the erection of the present Abbey church of Bath, in the choir of which he directed that his body should be interred. He was, however, buried beneath an altar monument in one of the chantries of Windsor chapel, where, under the oaken panels which present the arms and portraits of the above-named Prince Edward, and of the kings Edward the Fourth and Henry the Seventh, a Latin inscription requests the reader to pray for the soul of Master Oliver King, Professor of Law, and Chief Secretary to the Royal individuals above named.-2nd. Doctor Robert King, descended from an ancient family in Devonshire, became a Cistercian monk of Bewley Abbey in Oxfordshire, and in 1515 was elected Abbot of Bruerne, a house of his Order near Burford; he was subsequently Abbot of Thame, and lastly of Osney, all within the same county. When Oxford was constituted a diocese, he was, in 1542, appointed its first Bishop, where he died, and was buried in the choir of Christ Church. This Prelate had a brother, John, who was father of Philip King, of Wornal in Buckinghamshire, whose son, John, is the next object of notice.-3rd. Doctor John King was born at Wornal in 1559, and educated in Westminster school, graduated in Oxford, became Archdeacon of Nottingham, Rector of St. Andrew's, Holborn, Prebendary of Sneading in St. Paul's Cathedral, Dean of Christ's Church in Oxford, and Vice Chancellor of that University. He was one of the chaplains of the Archbishop of York, and afterwards chaplain to Queen Elizabeth and King James, by

which latter monarch he was, in 1611, appointed Bishop of London. James used to style him, in allusion to his name, the “king" of preachers, and, although a character founded on a pun should be very doubtfully admitted, yet there appeared much truth in the observation. He was accounted the most natural and persuasive orator of his time, and Lord Chief Justice Coke often declared of him, that he was the best speaker at the Star Chamber in his day. In 1612, he followed in the funeral procession of Henry, Prince of Wales, and in 1617 preached a sermon at Court, of which Nicholls writes: "they say he spake home, and was very plain in many points, which, as it seemed, was nothing pleasing, the rather for that he was a full half hour too long." The same writer, where speaking of the Queen's illness at Hampton Court in 1618, says: "We begin now to apprehend the Queen's danger, when the physicians begin to speak doubtfully, but I cannot think the case desperate, as long as she was able to attend a whole sermon on Christmas-day, preached by the Bishop of London." On her death, which occurred soon after, Doctor King attended her funeral to Henry the Seventh's chapel in Westminster Abbey. Himself died within three years from that period, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.-4. Doctor Henry King, the son of the preceding Prelate, was also born at Wornal, in 1591, and partly educated at Westminster school, from which he was elected a student of Christ's Church in 1608. He also became an eminent preacher, and chaplain to James the First and Charles the First successively; in 1638, Dean of Rochester, and in 1641 was advanced to the See of Chichester. During the Commonwealth he was not permitted to enjoy his see, but recovered it on the Restoration. Wood says of him, that "he was esteemed, by many of his neighbourhood and diocese, the epitome of all honours, virtues, and generous nobleness, and a person never to be forgotten by his tenants and by the poor." He died in 1669, and was interred in the choir of his own cathedral, where a monument was erected to him with an inscription in Latin, stating that he was "antiquâ atque regiâ Saxonum, apud Damnonios in agro Devoniensi, prosapiâ oriundus;" adding, that while he was

"natalium splendore illustris, pietate, doctrinâ et virtutibus illustrior fuit." The fifth Prelate of the name, born within the sixteenth century, was Doctor Edward King of Huntingdonshire ancestry, born in 1575; he was educated for the Church, at Oxford, where he graduated as Master of Arts. In 1604 he had a grant from the Crown of the deanery of Elphin, with a stall in the choir, and a seat and voice in the Chapter. In 1610 he was consecrated Bishop of that see, when he built a noble mansion near the town for himself and his successors, and endowed it with lands which he had purchased. He also recovered a great part of the possessions of the see, that had been alienated by his predecessors. Lord Strafford, in his State Letters, styles him "a truly royal bishop;" he died in 1638, at the age of 63, and was buried in his own Cathedral.

This was not, however, it may be supposed, the first introduction of the name into Ireland; it is traceable in many prior records and documents. In 1399, Henry King had a grant(a) of the office of the Serjeantcy of Louth for the term of his life, free of all fees. In 1560 Matthew King was Clerk of the Check in Ireland(6). In 1566 flourished James King, a learned citizen of Dublin, and a scholar of Cambridge(c). The founder, however, of the noble line, that is associated with this History by title and tenure, was not located in Ireland until the close of the sixteenth century, and then, according to the Peerage Books and the authority of Lodge, derived his descent from a family, anciently seated near North Allerton, in the County of York, and there possessed of large estates. In support of this deduction and of the family connexion with Yorkshire, it does appear, on a Roll of Parliament of 1314, that Richard King was then possessed of large estates in the parish of Edlington, in that county in 1389, the Reverend John King was Vicar of Halifax(d), and in the early part of the

(a) Close Roll, 18 Rich. II., in Rolls' Office, Ireland.

(b) MSS. Brit. Mus. Titus, B. 13, f. 13.

(c) Holinshed's Chronicles of Ireland, f. 41.
(d) Whitaker's "Leodis et Elmete," p. 384.

reign of Queen Elizabeth, Alexander King had a grant of certain premises there, which had been forfeited to the Crown; while James King was about the same time seised of certain rights in the manor of Wakefield(a). Whitaker also speaks of Skellands, in the parish of Kirkby-Malghdale, deanery of Craven, Yorkshire, as the residence of a family of the Kings, the first of which branch he alleges, on tradition, came thither out of Westmoreland, and garrisoned the Church of Kirkby-Malghdale against the Parliament. It may be here mentioned of the pedigree of this Yorkshire branch, that Thomas King built the mansion-house of Churchend in said parish of Kirkby, and from him lineally descended Mr. King, who accompanied Lord Anson in several of his voyages. The great grandson of this Thomas, James King, LL. D., F. R. S., &c., born in 1716, and educated at Cambridge, became chaplain of the English House of Commons, and was, in 1772, a canon of Windsor, which in 1775 he exchanged for the deanery of Raphoe, and died in Woodstock in 1795, leaving a son, Captain James King, who was the friend and colleague of Cook in his last voyage round the world. The history of this circumnavigation King afterwards compiled at Woodstock, and dying in 1784 at Nice, was there interred. Although it cannot be deemed irrelevant to allude to these evidences of the existence of a family of the Kings in Yorkshire, yet it does appear that the founder of the line, which is the especial object of this notice, describes himself in his will as "Sir John King, of the Close of the Cathedral Church of Lichfield, in the County of Stafford, Knight," and, in affirmance of this more immediate deduction from Staffordshire, it appears on record, that John King had a grant, by demise from Edward the Sixth in 1550, of a term in reversion of divers lands, tenements, and rents in the manor of Skene, extending into Staffordshire and Derbyshire(6), which he, John King, afterwards assigned to Henry Sacheverell. Be this as it may, Sir John King, the individual before alluded to, was eminently conspicuous in extending the Eng

(a) Chancery Pleadings, England, temp. Eliz.

(6) Calendary of Inquis. and Pleadings in Duchy of Lancaster. VOL. I.

E

lish law and Royal authority over Ireland in the time of Elizabeth; and accordingly were his services promptly remembered by her successor(a). In the first year of James's reign he was appointed Clerk of the Crown in Chancery; had a grant of various lands in the Counties of Down, Meath, Westmeath, Dublin, Louth, and Kildare, with a reversionary grant of the Abbey of Boyle, and certain parcels of its possessions, as well as of those of the monasteries of Cong, Ballintubber, and Ballinasmall, in the province of Connaught, and those of St. John's of Athy, and the rectory of Donoughmore. In the following year he passed patent for the Priory of Knock, with all its appurtenances (465 acres), with sundry tithes and altarages, a grant of two fairs and a market at Boyle, and similar privileges at Cong, and lastly, a lease for twenty-one years of certain spiritual and temporal rights in Ulster; two days after which latter grant his Majesty, by royal letter, directed that, "in consideration of the good, true, and faithful service which Sir John King had performed in Ireland," he should receive an allocation of £50 in value, out of concealed lands held in fee-farm; by virtue whereof three patents, in 1605, 1606, and 1608, respectively, conveyed to him sixteen quarters of land in the counties of Clare, Desmond, Kerry, Limerick, Sligo, Tipperary, Dublin, Meath, Westmeath, Wicklow, King's County, Cork, Cavan, Roscommon, Mayo, Kildare, Waterford, Wexford, Galway, Longford, and Leitrim. In 1606, he and his wife Catherine, hereafter mentioned, being seised in fee of the manor of Rathwyre, in the County of Westmeath, sold it to the Earl of Clanrickard, immediately after which he had a grant of that of Belgard, extending into the counties of Dublin and Meath, with several rectories and tithes, described as then late parcels of the monastery of Clonard, County Meath, and of the priory of Ballindrohid, County Cork. In 1609, on the surrender of Sir James Fullerton, he was appointed Muster-Master General, and Clerk of

(a) The principal materials of the ensuing portion of this Memoir have been derived from Lodge's excellent "Peerage of Ireland."