John King (bishop of London)
Bishop of London in the Church of England, (1559-1621)
John King (c. 1559 – 30 March 1621) was the Bishop of London in the Church of England from 1611 to 1621.
Life
King was born in Worminghall, Buckinghamshire, to Philip King and Elizabeth (née Conquest). After an early education at Westminster School, he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1577, taught under Dr Thomas Holland, graduating B.A. in 1580 and M.A. in 1583. A chaplain to bishop John Piers, King became preacher to the city of York before becoming domestic chaplain to Thomas Egerton in London. As Rector of St Andrews, Holborn in 1597 and prebend of Sneating in St Paul's in 1599, King became a well-known Calvinist anti-Catholic preacher. Appointed a chaplain in ordinary to James I, James then made John King dean of Christ Church in August 1605. He was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1607 until 1610. He was consecrated Bishop of London on 8 September 1611.
In 1617, according to Samuel Purchas, while Pocahontas was in London King entertained her "with festival state and pomp beyond what I have seen in his greate hospitalitie afforded to other ladies".
King died on 30 March 1621 (Good Friday), seemingly of gall stones or kidney stones.
“John King (bishop of London)” enters the record as bishop of London in the Church of England, (1559-1621). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, King and bishop can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6243121. VIAF identifies the subject as 54489181. The Library of Congress control number is n83070487. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1559, 1621, 1611 and 1577.
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This entry incorporates text from “John King (bishop of London)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.