The Right Honourable The Lord King PC FRS |
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The 1st Lord King, by Daniel de Coning, 1720
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Lord Chancellor | |
In office 1725–1733 |
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Preceded by | In Commission Last Holder The Earl of Macclesfield |
Succeeded by | The Lord Talbot |
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas | |
In office 1714–1725 |
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Preceded by | The Lord Trevor |
Succeeded by | Sir Robert Eyre |
Personal details | |
Born | 1669 Exeter |
Died | 22 July 1734 Surrey |
Spouse(s) | Anne Seys |
Children | 6 |
Alma mater | Leiden University |
Peter King, 1st Baron King PC FRS (c. 1669–22 July 1734) was an English lawyer and politician, who became Lord Chancellor of England.
He was born in Exeter in 1669, and educated at 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. This treatise engaged the interest of his cousin, John Locke, the philosopher, by whose advice his father sent him to the Leiden University, where he stayed for nearly three years. He entered the Middle Temple in 1694 and was called to the bar in 1698.
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 Glastonbury in 1705 and recorder of London in 1708. Made a Serjeant-at-Law, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1714 to 1725, when he was raised to the peerage as a Lord Justice and Speaker of the House of Lords. In June of the same year he was made Lord Chancellor, holding office until compelled by a paralytic stroke to resign in 1733.