Church dignitary in a line following king, maybe (8)
I believe the answer is:
cardinal
'church dignitary' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'in a line following king maybe' is the wordplay.
'line' becomes 'l'.
'following' says to put letters next to each other.
'king maybe' becomes 'card' (type of playing card).
'in'+'a'+'l'='inal'
'inal' put after 'card' is 'CARDINAL'.
(Other definitions for cardinal that I've seen before include "Red - chief - RC dignitary" , "Word to describe one or two" , "High-ranking official of the Roman Catholic church" , "Senior churchman - bird" , "Possibly one" .)