Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, was the eldest son of John King, the famous Bishop of London & his wife Joan Freeman (daughter of Henry Freeman of Staffordshire), and was born in January of 1591/2 at Worminghall in Buckinghamshire. King was a minor poet of the age, but an excellent one among that class. He was befriended by numerous poets & other men of note, including Ben Jonson, John Donne, Izaak Walton, Sir Henry Wotton, and James Howell to name a few. Even the diarist Samuel Pepys took notice of him (however small) on a couple of occasions in the 1660s. He is almost exclusively remembered today for his poem The Exequy, upon his wife who died. Like many of his period he was fond of writing elegies, particularly of notable events to occur in the royal family or court, such as the death of James I/VI's popular first-born son Prince Henry, and the execution of Charles I.

He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1609, when his father was Dean of his College and Vice-Chancellor of the University, and took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. in 1611 and 1614. His studies at Oxford, according to Fuller and Anthony Wood, were 'Musick and Poetry . . . Oratory and Philosophy,' and no doubt many of his lyrics were written at that time. In 1611 his father was made Bishop of London, and soon afterwards King himself was ordained together with his brother John, who seems to have been his close companion during all their early life. Influential patronage favoured the two brothers. King became Chaplain in Ordinary to King James, in 1616 made a prebend of St. Paul's, and next year advanced to the Archdeaconry of Colchester; and there is an account of a sermon preached by him at Paul's cross in 1617 in which 'he did' - as he usually did - 'reasonably well, but nothing extraordinary,' and showed himself 'orator' - as he was poeta - 'parum vehemens.' He was now living in London, near St. Paul's Churchyard, but he seems to have kept up his connection with his Christ Church friends. About the year 1617 he married Anne Berkeley of Throwley in Kent, and by the time of her death [see his poem The Exequy], which must have taken place in 1624, their family had grown large; in the words of one of her elegists:

Children were sure, and frequent; ev'ry year
By a new darling was seal'd current here;

But of their six children only two, John and Henry, survived their infancy.

In 1621 King was called upon to defend the reputation of his father, who had died in that year, from a persistent rumour that he had embraced the Roman Catholic faith on his death-bed; and this he did in a sermon which was the first of many which subsequently appeared in print. In 1624 Henry and his brother John King obtained Canonries of Christ Church, Oxford, and both seem to have led a quiet life in London till John's death in 1639. Henry King was made D.D. and Dean of Rochester, became Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles I., and in February 1641/2 he was raised to the bishopric of Chichester. During the months immediately following his consecration the Civil War broke out, and the Parliamentarians besieged Chichester, ransacked the Palace, and barbarously treated him, besides sequestrating his estates. He lived in 'sad Retirement' in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire during the war, and bewailed its result in Elegies; but at the Restoration amendment was made, and he lived to enjoy his see for nine years. He died October 1, 1669, and was buried on the south side of the choir (near the communion table) in Chichester Cathedral October 8th. His son John soon died also; and Henry King's widow, Anne the daughter of Sir William Russell, erected a monument with a Latin inscription to their memory.

During his life King had made many friends, and seems to have been known to most of the prominent poets of his day, including Ben Jonson and John Donne, the latter of whom he became literary executor. He was also a long-time friend of Izaak Walton (another poet and author of the enormously popular Compleat Angler), as can be seen in his letter appended to Walton's Life of Hooker, dated November 17, 1664, which begins,

"Though a familiarity of more than forty years continuance, and the constant experience of your love, even in the worst of the late sad times, be sufficient to endear our friendship; yet I must confess my affection much improved, not only by evidences of private respect to those very many that know and love you, but by your new demonstration of a public spirit, testified in a diligent, true, and useful collection, of so many material passages as you have now afforded me in the Life of venerable Mr. Hooker." And he ends it, "Your ever faithful and affectionate old Friend."

In the letter he refers to his friendship with John Donne also, "I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable friend, Dr. Donne, late dean of St. Paul's church, who not only trusted me as his executor, but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent sermons of his now made public; professing before Dr. Winniff, Dr. Monford, and, I think, yourself, then present at his bed-side, that it was by my restless importunity that he had prepared them for the press."
And of Sir Henry Wotton, whose life was also written by Walton, "And let me not leave my friend Sir Henry without this testimony added to yours, that he was a man of as florid a wit, and as elegant a pen, as any former (or ours which in that kind is a most excellent) age, hath ever produced."

King was also friends with the political author James Howell (who is now chiefly remembered for his letters, published as Epistolae Ho-Elianae), as they had a few friends in common. Howell is supposed to have pronounced the first judgment upon King's poems, in manuscript form. In a letter to a Mr Thomas W. dated 3 February, 1637, Howell says, "those choice manuscripts you sent me lately, amongst which I find divers rare pieces, but that which afforded me most entertainment in those miscellanies, was Doctor Henry King's Poems, wherein I find not only heat and strength but also an exact concinnity and evenness of fancy."

Henry King is remembered primarily for a single poem, The Exequy, on Anne Berkeley his deceased first wife, written about 1624. In it he adapts John Donne's manner with impressive skill and individuality lamenting Anne's death. It may be considered one of the purest and most moving poems written in the 17th century. King was an amateur poet (like most of his time), who had a tender heart, a tranquil mind, and a perfect sense of rhyme and rhythm, which made him at his best among the best of the minor poets of that age. Very few in Early English poetry stand above him.

Samuel Pepys makes mention in his diary of him in role of Bishop, first on the 6th of July, 1660, "The Bishop of Chichester preached before the King, and made a great flattering sermon, which I did not like that the Clergy should meddle with matters of state." And again on the 8th of March, 1662/3, "To White Hall to-day: I heard Dr. King, Bishop of Chichester, make a good and eloquent sermon upon these words, 'They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy.'"

King published numerous sermons & theological works, beginning in 1621 with his Sermon Preached at Pauls Crosse. Only two collected editions of his poems were printed in his life-time; the first being printed without King's knowledge in 1657 was reported to have been by his brother Dr. Philip King (according to Wood's Oxonienses) and was put into the Bodleian Catalogue under Philip's name. The second collection appeared in 1664. In 1700 a third collection was published but, strangely, this was spuriously attributed to Ben Jonson. Other poems were printed individually, however, such as the 'Elegy Upon K. Charles I.', (1649), and 'A Groane at the Funerall of that incomparable and Glorious Monarch, Charles the First,' (1649) which was reissued as 'A Deepe Groane, Fetch'd At the Funerall of that incomparable and Glorious Monarch, Charles the First,' (1649). In 1843 Archdeacon Hannah's incomplete, though invaluable, edition was printed. In 1913 Dr Lawrence Mason of Yale University published the Life and Works of Henry King; and in 1914 an edition of the poems was released by the same. In 1925 the Nonesuch Press published an excellent scholarly edition of the Poems edited by John Sparrow in a limited edition of 900 copies. Kings works, theological or poetical, in any edition pre-1925 are scarcely available; however modern reprints have recently been produced.