WILLIAM KING (1650-1729), Anglican divine, the son of James King, an Aberdeen man who migrated to Antrim, was born in May 1650. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and after being presented to the parish of St Werburgh, Dublin, in 1679, became dean of St Patrick's in 1689, bishop of Derry in 1691, and archbishop of Dublin in 1702. In 1718 he founded the divinity lectureship in Trinity College, Dublin, which bears his name. He died in May 1729. King was the author of The State of the Protestants in Ireland under King James's Government (1691), but is best known by his De Origine Mali (1702; Eng. trans., 1731), an essay deemed worthy of a reply by Bayle and Leibnitz. King was a strong supporter of the Revolution, and his voluminous correspondence is a valuable help to our knowledge of the Ireland of his day.
See A Great Archbishop of Dublin, William King, D.D., edited by Sir C. S. King, Bart. (1908).