KING, PETER, LORD, was born in 1669 at Exeter, in which town his father, Mr, Jerome Kiug, though said to bo descended from a good family in Somereetshire, carried on the business of a grocer and salter. To this business he brought up his son, and the future Lord Chancellor of Great Britain served for some years in his father's shop. It was probably his relationship to the celebrated John Locke, whose sister was hie mother, that put it into his head, while thus situated, to think of making himself a scholar ; but the story told is, that he had by himself made extraordinary proficiency in learning, purchasing books with all the money he could procure, and devoting every moment of his leisure to study, before he was taken any notice of by Locke, by whose advice however he then went to the University of Leyden. How long he studied there we are not informed. He first made him self known by the publication, in an octavo volume, in 1691, of the First Part of his ' Inquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity, and Worship of the Primitive Church,' in which with considerable learning he advocated the right of the Protestant dissenters from episcopacy to be comprehended in the scheme of the national establishment. The Second Part, occupied with the Worship of the Primitive Church, followed soon after. This work excited much attention, and, besides a correspondence between Mr. Edward Elys and the author, which was published in octavo by the former in 1694, drew forth, on its being reprinted in 1713, during the discussions on the Schism Bill, ' An Impartial View and Censure of the Mistakes propagated for the Ordaining Power of Presbyters in a Celebrated Book entitled An Enquiry, &c.,' in an appendix to The Invalidity of the Dissenting Ministry ;' and also An Original Draught of the Primitive Church, in answer to a Discourse entitled An Enquiry, ttc.,' 8vo, London, 1717. Both these anew ere professed to be by a Presbyter of the Church of England,' and the latter at least is known to be the production of a nonjuring clergyman named Sclater.
Meanwhile King had entered himself at the Inner Temple, and was in due course called to the bar. He appears to have begun very early to make a figure in his profession ; and he also Goon entered upon a political career, having in 1699 obtained a seat in the House of Commons as one of the members for Beeralston, which he retained for seven parliaments, or to the end of the reign of Queen Anne. He did not yet however altogether abandon his first pursuit, but in 1702 published in octavo another learned theological work, The History of the Apostles' Creed, with Critical Observations on its Several Articles.' In July 1708 he was chosen Recorder of London, and was soon after knighted. In 1709 he was appointed by the House of Commons one of the managers at the impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell, and in 1712 he gave his services, without fee, as one of the counsel for Mr. Whiston, on his trial for heresy before the Court of Delegates. In November 1714, a few months after the accession of George I., Sir Peter King was wade Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and he was sworn a privy councillor in April of the following year. After the great seal had been taken from the Earl of Macclesfield, he was in Juno 1725 appointed Lord Chancellor, and was at the same time raised to the peerage as Baron King of Ockham in the county of Surrey. Lord King however did not as Chancellor satisfy the public expectation, or, it ie supposed, his own; and he is said to have injured his health by his labours to make himself master of the department of professional learning necessary for his new duties. He resigned the seals on the 26th of November 1733, and died at his seat of Ockham on the 22nd of July 1734. By his wife Anne, daughter of Richard Seys, Eeq., of Boverton in Glamorganehiro, he left four eons, who all inherited the title in succession, and from the youngest of whom the present peer (created Earl of Lovelace iu 1838) is descended.