At this time, when the confusion and apprehensions of the clergy drove many of them to England for refuge, the affairs of the Church in Ireland were wholly managed by King and Bishop Dopping, an ex-Fellow of Trinity. Archbishop Marsh, indeed, left everything in the hands of King as his commissary, and the latter’s position became one of great responsibility and danger. With many others, he was thrown into prison in Dublin Castle, and, although released in a few months, was again in the following year imprisoned, until the victory of the Boyne set him at liberty. As Dean of St. Patrick’s he preached at a thanksgiving service for the victory in his Cathedral, at which the King was present; and when it was told his Majesty, in answer to enquiry, that the preacher’s name was William King, he remarked, smiling, that their names were both alike--King William and William King. On his appointment to the Bishopric of Derry, which followed close upon the Revolution, he showed his great administrative abilities in the government of the See, which had been terribly impoverished by the war. As he had been the first to declare in public speech to which king his allegiance was due, so was he the first author of a history of the time, _State of the Protestants in Ireland_, in which he vindicated the lawfulness of William’s interposition between James and his subjects; a book spoken of by Burnet as “a copious history of the government of Ireland during the reign, which is so well received, and so universally acknowledged to be as truly as it is fairly written, that I refer my readers to the account of these matters which is fully and faithfully given by that learned and zealous prelate.”