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"Come Thou Almighty King" is a popular Christian hymn of unknown authorship, which is often attributed to Charles Wesley.
Contents
History and authorship
The earliest known publication of this hymn is a leaflet that was bound into the 6th edition of George Whitefield's Collection of Hymns for Social Worship, 1757. In this leaflet, the hymn had five verses of seven lines each, and was titled "An Hymn to the Trinity." The leaflet also contained the hymn "Jesus, Let Thy Pitying Eye" by Charles Wesley, and because of this hymnologist Daniel Sedgwick attributed "Come Thou Almighty King" to Wesley as well. However, there is no record of this hymn in any of Wesley's collections of hymns, nor is there any hymn known to be Wesley's that uses the same meter as this hymn does (6,6,4,6,6,6,4).
Tune
"Come Thou Almighty King" is usually sung to the tune "Italian Hymn" (also called "Moscow" or "Trinity"), which was written as a musical setting for this hymn by Felice Giardini at the request of Countess Selina Shirley. This hymn tune along with three others of Giardini's were first published in Martin Madan's Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, 1769.