Peter King, 1st Baron King

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PC FRS
The 1st Lord King, by Daniel de Coning, 1720
Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
Lord High Steward for the trials of:
List
In office
1 June 1725 – 29 November 1733
Monarchs
Sir Robert Eyre
Personal details
Born1669
Exeter
Died(1734-07-22)22 July 1734
Surrey
SpouseAnne Seys
Children6
Alma materLeiden University

Peter King, 1st Baron King,

PC, FRS (c. 1669 – 22 July 1734), commonly referred to as Lord King, was an English lawyer and politician, who became Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.[1]

Life

King was born in

Exeter Grammar School
. In his youth he was interested in early church history, and published anonymously in 1691 An Enquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity and Worship of the Primitive Church that flourished within the first Three Hundred Years after Christ.
called to the bar in 1698.[2]

In 1700 he was returned to

Parliament of England as the member for Bere Alston in Devon
, holding the seat until 1715.

He was appointed recorder of

Speaker of the House of Lords. In June of the same year he was made Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, holding office until compelled by a paralytic stroke to resign in 1733.[2]

He was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society on 14 November 1728.[4]

He died at

Michael Rysbrack. It is on the north wall, white marble in Palladian style, with two figures sitting either side of large urn in front of pyramidal ground. Symbols of office surround Lord King.[5]

Family

King married Anne Seys in 1704. They had six children: two daughters and four sons. Each of their sons succeeded in turn as Lord King, Baron of Ockham.

After his death in 1734, the widowed Lady King lived in Grosvenor Square until her death in 1767.[6]

In 1835 his great-great-grandson

Peter John Locke King was a Member of Parliament for Surrey from 1847 to 1849 and won some fame as an advocate of reform, being responsible for the passing of the Real Estate Charges Act 1854, and for the repeal of a large number of obsolete laws.[2]

Assessment as Lord Chancellor

Lord King, Lord Chancellor

Lord King as chancellor failed to sustain the reputation which he had acquired at the common law bar. Nevertheless, he left his mark on English law by establishing the principles that a will of immovable property is governed by the

lex loci rei sitae, and that where a husband had a legal right to the personal estate of his wife, which must be asserted by a suit in equity, the court would not help him unless he made a provision out of the property for the wife, if she required it. He was also the author of the Act (Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730) by virtue of which English superseded Latin as the language of the courts.[2]

Works

Lord King published in 1702 a History of the Apostles' Creed (Leipzig, 1706; Basel, 1750) which went through several editions and was also translated into Latin.[2] His earlier work An Enquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity and Worship of the Primitive Church that flourished within the first Three Hundred Years after Christ was published 1691 and was quoted by John Wesley in many of his correspondences and is seen as influencing many of his view on the order of the Church.[7]

Cases

Some notable cases on which he was involved:

Spoke in support of the second article brought against Henry Sacheverell, February 28, 1709/10 - 'Tryal of Dr.Sacheverell' printed London 1710

References

  1. ^ "KING, Peter (c.1669-1734), of the Middle Temple, London and Ockham, Surr". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Chisholm 1911, p. 805.
  3. ^ "An Enquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity and Worship of the Primitive Church that flourished within the first Three Hundred Years after Christ" (EPUB, Full Text, Kindle, PDF and others). The Internet Archive. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  4. ^ "Lists of Royal Society Fellows". Retrieved 15 December 2006.
  5. ^ All Saints' Church, Ockham, Surrey
  6. ^ "Grosvenor Square: Individual Houses built before 1926 Pages 117-166 Survey of London: Volume 40, the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings)". British History Online. LCC 1980. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  7. ISBN 9781608999811
    .
Attribution
Parliament of England
Preceded by
Member of Parliament for Bere Alston
1701–1707
With: Sir Rowland Gwynne 1701
William Cowper 1701–1705
Spencer Cowper
1705–1707 		Succeeded by
Parliament of Great Britain
Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by
Parliament of England
Member of Parliament for Bere Alston
1707–1715
With: Spencer Cowper 1707–1710
Lawrence Carter
1710–1715 		Succeeded by
Legal offices
Preceded by Chief Justice of the Common Pleas
1714–1725 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by
In Commission
 Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
1725–1733 		Succeeded by
Peerage of Great Britain
New creation
Baron King

1725–1734 		Succeeded by
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