KING, John Glen, D.D., a native of Norfolk, born about 1732, was educated at Caius college, Cambridge. In 1764 he was appointed chaplain to the English factory at St. Petersburg, where he studied with the greatest diligence the rites and ceremonies of the Greek church, of which he published an account in 1772. He became rector of Wormley in Hertfordshire in 1783, and in 1786 preacher at Spring Garden chapel. Whilst resident in St. Petersburg he was appointed medallist to the empress of Russia, and at the time of his death was engaged in a medallic work. He died in November, 1787, in his fifty-sixth year. He wrote "Observations on the Climate of Russia," and "Observations on the Barberini Vase."—D. W. R.
KING, Peter, first lord, Lord-chancellor of England, was the son of a wealthy grocer and drysalter of Exeter, where he was born in 1669. His father, though a tradesman, was of a good Somersetshire family, and his mother was the sister of John Locke. The future lord-chancellor was destined by his father to be a grocer, and was brought up behind the counter; but he displayed a great love of reading, and at the instance of his uncle the philosopher, who from an early period took an affectionate interest in him, he was sent to the university of Leyden. There his chief study was theology, and after his return to England he published in 1691 a work which made a good deal of noise, "An Inquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity, and Worship of the Primitive Church." His father it seems was a dissenter, and the object of the work was to enforce the feasibility of such a revision of the Articles and Liturgy, as would enable presbyterians to become members of the Church of England without surrendering their distinctive views. A scheme of the kind was then afloat, but it failed; and King, instead of taking holy orders, was entered in 1694, with the approval of his uncle, a student of the Middle temple. He became, we are told on high authority, "a consummate master of the common law;" and in studying the constitution and political history of England he was directed by his celebrated uncle, who loved him like a son and kept a careful watch on his career. He went the western circuit, where he was patronized by the dissenters and obtained a large practice. Recommended by Locke to the whig leaders, he was elected in 1701 member for the borough of Buralston in Devonshire, which he represented in six parliaments. The tory reaction had set in, and the death of William III. destroyed the hopes which he had formed of becoming solicitor-general. He abjured politics though retaining his seat in parliament, but still cherished his predilection for theology, publishing anonymously in 1702 his "History of the Apostles' Creed," long a work of some authority. He was by the deathbed of Locke (October, 1704), who l eft him heir to his property and MSS. In his own profession he had thriven, being the acknowledged leader of the western circuit, and retained in all great causes at Westminster; when in 1708 he was appointed recorder of London, and going up with an address after the battle of Malplaquet was knighted by the queen. Next year he was chosen by the house of commons one of the managers of the trial of Sacheverell, and supported the second article of the impeachment. In 1712 he was counsel for "wicked Will Whiston" when brought before the delegates; and here King's theological learning, rare at the bar, was brought appropriately and successfully into play. A consistent whig and steady friend of the Hanoverian succession, he reaped his reward on the accession of George I. In the judicial rearrangements which followed that event. Lord Trevor, a violent tory, was replaced by King as lord chief-justice of the common pleas, and for eleven years he discharged the duties of his office with industry, good temper, impartiality, and success. During the trial of Macclesfield, King, though not a peer, presided as speaker of the house of lords; and when the great seal was taken out of commission he was made lord-chancellor (June, 1725), having been raised to the peerage in the previous month as Lord King, baron of Ockham in Surrey. Quite unaccustomed to chancery business, he was much perplexed by his new duties, for which he endeavoured to qualify himself by reading hard, and by communing in private with the practitioners of his court. He became, according to Lord Campbell, "a very pretty equity lawyer;" but it is undeniable that the appeals from and reversals of his decisions were very numerous. To the reform of the law or its practice, and of the court of chancery, he made at least two important contributions. The appointment of an accountant-general in chancery to receive and invest in public securities the money that had formerly lain idle, was due to Lord King; and he introduced the act which in written pleadings substituted English for the old law jargon. His health is said to have been undermined by the labour which he went through to acquire a knowledge of equity, and by the vexation of feeling that he had not the confidence of the bar. Attacked by paralysis he resigned the great seal on the 19th of November, 1733, and retiring to Ockham died there on the 22nd July, 1734.—F. E.
KING, Peter, seventh lord, great-grandson of Lord-chancellor King, was born in 1775. At the age of six he was sent to Eton, and caring comparatively little for the studies of the place, he devoted himself to mechanics, geometry, and drawing. One of the occupations of his leisure hours was to make a detailed survey and map of the country round Eton. On leaving Eton he went to Trinity college, Cambridge, and by the death of his father in 1793, succeeded while still a minor to the title. After passing the usual time at the university he made a tour on the continent, and returning to England when he came of age he took his seat in the house of lords, and joined the little band who, in a hopeless minority, supported the principles and policy of Charles James Fox. By Lord Holland probably he was introduced to Mr. Fox; and the vicinity of Ockham, Lord King's seat, to Mr. Fox's residence of St. Anne's Hill, facilitated the growth of an intimacy between the two. He spoke not unfrequently in the house of lords, and published occasionally a political pamphlet. Towards the close of his life his senatorial activity was chiefly displayed in a series of vehement attacks on the established church of England and on the principle of establishments. In 1829 he published a life of John Locke, chiefly valuable for its copious extracts from the philosopher's correspondence, which had descended to Lord King from his ancestor the lord-chancellor. The work soon reached a second edition, and now forms one of the volumes of Mr. Bohn's Standard Library. Lord King died on the 4th of June, 1833. He had married in 1804 Lady Hester Fortescue, eldest daughter of the first Earl Fortescue and niece of Lord Grenville. He was succeeded by his son, now earl of Lovelace, who married Lord Byron's Ada. There is a warm panegyric of Lord King in Lord Brougham's Sketches of Statesmen, and selections from his writings and speeches were published in 1844, with a brief memoir by the editor, his brother-in-law, Earl Fortescue.—F. E.
KING, Richard, vicar of Steeple Morden, Cambridgeshire, and rector of Worthen, Salop, was born at Bristol in 1749. He graduated B.A. in 1771, and M.A. in 1774, and was a fellow of New college, Oxford. He was a sound scholar, the author of tracts on inspiration and on church and state, and of "An Answer to the Letters of Peter Plymley." He died in 1810.—D. W. R.
KING, Sir Richard, son of Admiral Sir Richard King, was born in Dorsetshire in 1771, and entered the navy early in life under his father. He soon obtained the rank of captain, and the command of the frigate Aurora, 28, with which he cruised on the Irish station till July, 1795. He was then appointed to the Druid, 32, with which, in January, 1797, he captured a large French transport, La Ville de l'Orient; and in the following year, in command of the Sirius, 36, he captured two Dutch ships of war which had escaped from the Texel with French troops and arms for Ireland. The captain of an English sloop of war which was cruising close at hand during the latter engagement, refused to come to his assistance, being firmly persuaded that the whole affair was a feint of three of the enemy's ships to draw him into a snare, and when he afterwards discovered his mistake, and was rebuked by Admiral Lord Duncan, he committed suicide. In the battle of Trafalgar Captain King engaged successively two Spanish ships-of-the-line, one of which he captured, and then made a prize of one of two French ships which came to the rescue. In 1806 he succeeded his brother in the baronetcy, and afterwards served at the blockade of Ferrol and the defence of Cadiz. In 1813 he commanded the San Joseph, 112, in the action with the French squadron, off Toulon, under Admiral Emeriau. In 1816 he was appointed to command on the East India station, was made vice-admiral in 1821, and nominated a grand cross of the bath in 1833. He was finally commander-in-chief in the Medway, and died at Sheerness in August, 1834.—G. BL.
KING, Sir Robert, was born in Ireland at the close of the sixteenth century. His father, Sir John King, had served with
