re proof, in addition to the witness of a
thoroughly pure and wise man; or, what is more dangerous, lest we
remain content with the unconfirmed statements of a bigot or knave.

William King was the son of James King, a miller, who, in order to
avoid taking the Solemn League and Covenant, removed from the North of
Scotland, and settled in Antrim, where William was born, 1st of May,
1650. (See Harris's "Ware," Bishops of Derry.) He was educated at
Dungannon, was a sizar, "_native_," and schoolmaster in T.C.D., and was
ordained in 1673. Parker, archbishop of Tuam, gave him a heap of
livings, and on being translated to Dublin, procured the Chancellorship
of St. Patrick's for King in 1679. This he held during the Revolution.
He was imprisoned in 1689 on suspicion, but after some months was
released, through the influence of Herbert and Tyrconnell, and
notwithstanding C. J. Nugent's opposition. Immediately on his release
he wrote his "State of the Protestants of Ireland," printed in London,
_cum privilegio_, at the chief Williamite printer's. It was written and
published while the war in Ireland was at its height, and when it was
sought at any price to check the Jacobite feeling then beginning to
revive in England, by running down the conduct of the Irish, James's
most formidable supporters. Moreover, King had been imprisoned (justly
or unjustly) by James's council, and he obtained the bishopric of Derry
from William, on the 25th of January, 1690 (old style), namely, within
thirty-eight weeks before the publication of his book, which was
printed, _cum privilegio_, 15th of October, 1691. Whether the bishopric
was the wages of the book, or the book revenge for the imprisonment, we
shall not say; but surely King must have had marvellous virtue to write
impartially, in excited and reckless times, for so demoralized a party
as the English Whigs, when he wrote of transactions yet incomplete, of
which there was a perilous stake not only for him but for his friends,
and when, of the parties at issue, one gave him a gaol and the other a
mitre.

There is scarcely a section in his book that does not abound with the
most superlative charges, put in the coarsest language. All the
calumnies as to 1641, which are now confessed to be false, are gospel
truths in his book. He never gives an exact authority for any of his
graver charges, and his appendix is a valuable reply to his text.

When, in addition to these external probabilites and in