Scholarly king comes to bad end (7)
I believe the answer is:
learned
'scholarly' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'king comes to bad end' is the wordplay.
'king' becomes 'lear' (Shakespeare's King Lear).
'comes to' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'bad' indicates an anagram.
'end' anagrammed gives 'ned'.
'lear'+'ned'='LEARNED'
(Other definitions for learned that I've seen before include "Got to know" , "Educated, scholarly" , "Having great knowledge" , "Found out; educated" , "Gained understanding" .)