KING, a monarch or potentate who rules singly over a people. Camden derives the word from the Saxon cyning, which signifies the same thing; and that from can, power, or ken, knowledge, with which every monarch is supposed to be invested. The Latin rex, the Scythian reix, the Punic resch, the Spanish rey, and French roi, come all, according to Postel, from the Hebrew באש, rosch, signifying chief, head. Kings were not known amongst the Israelites till the reign of Saul. Before his time they were governed at first by elders, as in Egypt; next by princes of God’s appointment, as Moses and Joshua; then by judges till the time of Samuel; and lastly, by kings. Most of the Grecian states were governed at first by kings, who were chosen by the people to decide differences, and to execute a power which was limited by laws. They commanded armies, presided over the worship of the gods, and executed other functions. This royalty was generally hereditary; but if the vices of the heir to the crown were odious to the people, or if the oracle had so commanded, he was cut off from the right of succession; yet the kings were supposed to hold their sovereignty by the appointment of Jupiter. The ensign of majesty was the sceptre, which· was made of wood adorned with studs of gold, and ornamented at the top with some figure, commonly that of an eagle, as being the bird of Jove. At first Rome was also governed by kings, who were elected by the people, with the approbation of the senate and concurrence of the augurs. Their power extended to religion, the revenues, the army, and the administration of justice. The monarchical form of government subsisted 244 years in Rome, under seven kings, the last of whom was Tarquinius Superbus. Amongst the Greeks the king of Persia had anciently the appellation of the Great King; the king of France now has that of the Most Christian King, and the king of Spain has that of Catholic King. The king of the Romans is a prince chosen by the emperor, as a coadjutor in the government of the empire. The king of England, by the Lateran council, held under Pope Julius II., had the title of Christianissimus conferred on him; and that of Defender of the Faith was added by Pope Leo X. though it had been used by them some time before. The title of Grace was first given to our kings about the time of Henry IV., and that of Majesty was first bestowed on Henry V1II., before whose time our kings were called Grace, Highness, and the like. In all public instruments and letters, the king styles himself nos, we; though till the time of King John he employed the singular number. The definition of king above given is according to the general acceptation of the term. It will not therefore strictly apply to the sovereign of Great Britain. The power of our king is subject to great limitations; but these are the limitations of wisdom [7:12:724]and the sources of dignity, being so far from diminishing his honour, that they impart an additional glory to his crown.

The oath taken by the king at his coronation is conceived in these terms :—“The archbishop or bishop shall say, Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this kingdom of Britain, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in parliament agreed, and the laws and customs of the same? The hing or queen shall say, I solemnly promise so to do. Archbishop or bishop. Will you to the utmost of your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgments? King or queen. I will. Archbishop or bishop. Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion established by the law? And will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them, or any of them? King or queen. All this I promise to do. After this the king or queen, laying his or her hand upon the holy gospel, shall say, The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep, so help me God; and then shall kiss the book.” This is the form of the coronation oath, as it is now prescribed by law. The principal articles appear to be at least as ancient as the Mirror of Justices, and even as the time of Bracton; but the wording of it was changed at the Revolution, because, as the statute alleges, the oath itself had been framed in doubtful words and expressions, with relation to ancient laws and constitutions at that time unknown. See England. King at Anns, or of Arms, is an officer of great antiquity, and anciently of great authority, whose business it is to direct the heralds, preside at their chapters, and exercise the jurisdiction of armoury. In England there are three kings of arms, namely, Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy.

The Garter principal King of Anns was instituted by Henry V. His business is to attend the knights of the garter at their assemblies, to marshal the solemnities at the funerals of the highest nobility, and to carry the garter to kings and princes beyond the sea; on which occasion he used to be joined in commission with some principal peer of the kingdom.

The Clarencieux KiNGat Arms is so called from the Duke of Clarence, to whom he first belonged. His office is to marshal and dispose the funerals of all the inferior nobility, as baronets, knights, esquires, and gentlemen, on the south side of the Trent.

The Norroy King at Arms is an officer whose duty it is to do the same thing on the north side of the river Trent.

The two last are also called provincial heralds, because they divide the kingdom into provinces between them. By charter they have power to visit noblemen’s families, to set down their pedigrees, to distinguish their arms, to appoint persons their arms, and with the garter king to direct the other heralds.

Anciently the kings at arms were created and solemnly crowned by the kings of England themselves; but in later times the earl marshal has a special commission at every creation to personate the king.

Lyon King at Arms for Scotland is the second king at arms for Great Britain, and he is invested and crowned with great solemnity. To him belong the publishing of king’s proclamations, the marshalling of funerals, the reversing of arms, and the like.

Kings or Lord Advocate for Scotland. The first in this office noticed by our writers was Sir John de Ross of Mountgreenan, who was appointed advocate to King James III. about the year 1483. Till his time there does not appear to have been any permanent officer named as king’s advocate, but temporary appointments for particular causes only; as was likewise the case in early times in England, where the attorneys-general were not otherwise constituted till the end of the fourteenth century. Thus, in the claim set up in the parliament of Scotland to the forfeited estates of the Earl of March, appearance was made “procuratoribus et praelocutoribus excellentissimi principis et domini nostri actoris ab uno prosequentis,” 1436, c. 135; and in the prosecution for treason in parliament against the Earl of Douglas in 1455, Lancelot de Abernethie was “proloquitor domini nostri regis.” It was the clerk-register that raised and prosecuted in parliament the indictment for treason against Lord Boyd, November 1469; in the process of forfeiture in parliament against the Earl of Ross, 1475, it was the lord chancellor who conducted the prosecution and led the evidence; and in a process of treason, 1479, the king asked the award of parliament “be his chanceler and advocats.” As respects the court of the lord-justiciar of Scotland, which, prior to the institution of the College of Justice, was the highest court next to the parliament, and possessed of both civil and criminal jurisdiction, it is well known that the clerk of court, or justice clerk, was long the only public prosecutor.

Sir John de Ross was succeeded in the office of king’s advocate by Henryson of Fordel, who continued therein from 1494 till 1507, when he was made justice-clerk in the room of Lawson of Hierigs, appointed king’s advocate. Both these offices of justice-clerk and king’s advocate having become vacant in September 1513, by the fall of Lawson and Henryson on the fatal field of Flodden, Wischeart of Pittarrow was nominated to both places, and he continued to hold them till his death, when thejoffice of king’s advocate was given to Sir William Scot of Bahreary and Adam Otterburn of Redhall, both lords of council. In December 1528, Bahreary was despatched to England in a diplomatic capacity; and having in consequence resigned, he was succeeded by Sir James Foulis of Colinten, a lord of the session, who, however, on the institution of the College of Justice, accepted the place of clerk-register. Otterburn then became sole king’s advocate, with the privilege of pleading within the bar of the new erected court, a privilege till then unknown in our juridical practice; for heretofore all pleaded within the bar, as indeed is still the case in the court of justiciary, where much of the old common law proceedings remain to this day; and in criminal cases the bar was occupied by the prisoner, who was thence styled the panel, a synonyme for bar.

To the same period may perhaps be traced the title of Lord Advocate: for, as early as the 2d April 1573, the king’s advocate is so styled;^[1. Pitcairn’s Criminal Triait. ] and in the statute 1587, c. 115, the title is given him as his accustomed designation. It had no doubt its origin in the circumstance of his being, from the erection of the court, a lord of session. This latter circumstance may seem the more remarkable of the two, but it admits of easy explanation, and it had its parallel in the old parliament of Paris. The constitution of the court of session, like the ecclesiastical tribunals after which it was modelled, was secret, and all its deliberations took place with closed doors. Provision was therefore to be made to secure to the crown a knowledge of its proceedings. Accordingly, at the institution of the court, the king’s advocate, the king’s treasurer, the clerk register, and the justice-clerk, were all made lords of session; and when no [7:12:725] vacant seat existed, as was the case when Henry Lauder was appointed to officiate as king’s advocate during Otterburn’s absence in England in 1533, or where the party was precluded from taking it “be reason of his less age,” as was the case when Sir Lewis Bellenden was appointed justice-clerk in 1578, the course adopted was to issue a royal warrant to remain in court during its deliberations. Where more than one individual held the office, as was commonly the case till the time of Sir Thomas Hope, the end in view was sufficiently attained if one only had right to remain in court; and this principle, it is believed, will be found to have been acted upon.

It was in the beginning of 1626 that Hope was appointed king’s advocate, along with the aged Sir William Oliphant, a lord of session. The king then also conferred on Hope the honour of knighthood; and the court of session, by act of sederunt passed at the king’s desire, allowed him to plead covered. This last ordinance has been strangely misapprehended by our writers; but, as Oliphant had just been removed from the bench, and Hope had no seat on it, there seems little reason to doubt that its object was to assert and clear the equality of the king’s advocate with the judges, who then usually sat on the bench with their hats on, and of the number of whom the king’s advocate had till now been one. It was not a personal but an official privilege, and was accordingly, with the other honours and privileges which had been enjoyed by Hope, confirmed to his successors by the act of sederunt dated the 2d of June 1649. Hope’s learning and astuteness are well known; and as he held the office for no less a period than twenty years, and at a time when the king resided permanently in England, we need not be surprised at the very large powers enjoyed by him and his successors in his high office.

When Hope was appointed king’s advocate, he was also appointed advocate to the Prince of Wales; but the latter office has since been always held separate, as it ought to be. In France, the advocate for the crown was also advocate for the church; but in Scotland, since the Reformation, this has never been the case. On the contrary, when Grant of Prestongrange accepted the office of king’s advocate, the General Assembly voted the offices of their procurator and clerk, then held by him, vacant by such acceptance, and filled them up accordingly. Grant, however, had held the office of procurator to the church while he was solicitor-general, as did likewise some of his predecessors; and the learned Mr Thomas Craig seems to have been at the same time procurator to the church and advocate-depute.

The office of solicitor-general seems to be of no older origin in Scotland than about two centuries ago; and it Avas not till the time of Charles Erskine of Tinwald, in the beginning of last century, that this officer had right to sit and plead within the bar of the inner-house; for certainly by the act of sederunt of 28th February 1662, renewed 6th November 1690, the solicitor-general and one deputy of the lord advocate were allowed to remain within “the innermost bar” of the outer-house. The advocates-depute arc of much older standing, though it was not till towards the end of the sixteenth century that the office was permanent. They are now four in number, appointed to attend the sc.eral circuits, and the Glasgow winter assize, the lord advocate has also a deputy in the court of exchequer. (u ∙ u ∙ u.)

King, Dr John, a learned English bishop, born at Worwall about 1559, was educated at Westminster School and at Oxford, and appointed chaplain to Queen Elizabeth. In 1605 he was made dean of Christ Church; for several years he was vice-chancellor of Oxford; and in 1611 he was advanced to the bishopric of London. Besides his Lectures upon Jonah, delivered at York, he published several sermons. King James I. used to style him “the king of preachers;” and Lord Chief-Justice Coke often declared that “he was the bestspeaker in the star-chamber in his time.” He died on the 30th of March 1621, and was interred in St Paul’s cathedral. ’ Soon after his death it was reported that he had died a member of the Catholic church. But the falsehood of this story was sufficiently exposed by his son Dr Henry King, who was created bishop of Chichester, in a sermon delivered soon afterwards at St Paul’s Cross; by Bishop Godwin in the Appendix to his Commentarius de Proesulibus Angliae, printed in 1622; and by Mr John Gee, in his book entitled The Foot out of the Snare.

King, Dr William, a facetious English writer, born at London in 1663, was allied to the noble families of Clarendon and Rochester. He was elected a student of Christ Church from Westminster School in 1681. He afterwards entered upon the study of law, and having taken the degree of doctor of civil law, soon acquired a considerable reputation as a civilian, and obtained great practice. He attended the Earl of Pembroke, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, into that kingdom, where he was appointed judge-advocate, sole commissioner of the prizes, keeper of the records, and vicar-general to the lord-primate of Ireland. He died on Christmas day 1712, and was interred in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. His writings are pretty numerous. The principal are, 1. Animadversions on a pretended Account of Denmark, written by Mr (afterwards Lord) Molesworth; 2. Dialogues of the Dead; 3. The Art of Love, in imitation of Ovid De Arte Amandi ; 4. A volume of Poems; 5. Useful Transactions; 6. An Historical Account of the heathen Gods and Heroes; and, 7. Several translations.

King, Dr William, archbishop of Dublin, was descended from an ancient family in the north of Scotland, but born at Antrim in the north of Ireland on the 1st of May 1650. In 1674 he took priest’s orders, and in 1679 was promoted by his patron, Dr Parker, archbishop of Dublin, to the chancellorship of St Patrick. In 1687 Peter Manby, dean of Londonderry, having published at Loudon a pamphlet entitled Considerations which obliged Peter Manby, dean of Londonderry, to embrace the Catholic Religion, our author immediately wrote an answer. Mr Man by, encouraged by the court, and assisted by the most learned champions of the church of Rome, published a reply under the title of a Reformed Catechism, in two Dialogues, concerning the English Reformation, in reply to Mr King’s Answer. Our author soon rejoined in a Vindication of the Answer. Mr Manby dropped the controversy, but dispersed a loose sheet of paper, artfully written, with the title of a Letter to a Friend, showing the Vanity of this Opinion, that every Man’s Sense and Reason arc to guide him in Matters of Faith. This Dr King refuted in a Vindication of the Christian Religion and Reformation against the Attempts of a Letter to a Friend. In 1689 he was twice confined in the Tower by order of King James II., and the same year created doctor of divinity. In 1690, upon King James’s retreat to France after the battle of the Boyne, he was advanced to the see of Derry. In 1692 he published at London, The State of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King James’s Government, in 4to; “a history,” says Bishop Burnet, “as truly as it is finely written.” He had by him at his death attested vouchers of every particular fact alleged in this book. However, it was soon attacked by Mr Charles Lesly. In 1693, our author, finding the number of Protestant Dissenters in his diocese of Derry increased by a vast addition of colonists from Scotland, in order to persuade them to conformity to the established church, published a Discourse concerning the Inventions of Men in the Worship of God. Mr Joseph Boyse, a dissenting minister, wrote an answer.
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The bishop answered Mr Boyse. The latter replied, and the bishop rejoined. In 1702 he published at Dublin, in quarto, his celebrated treatise De Origine Mali. Mr Edmund Law, fellow of Christ’s College in Cambridge, afterwards published a complete translation of this work, with very valuable notes, in 4to. In the second edition he has inserted, by way of notes, a large collection of the author’s papers on the same subject, which he had received from his relations after the publication of the former edition. In this excellent treatise the author has made many curious observations. He asserts and proves that there is more moral good in the earth than moral evil. A sermon by our author, preached at Dublin in 1709, was published, under the title of Divine Predestination and Foreknowledge consistent with the Freedom of Man’s Will. This was attacked by Anthony Collins, in a pamphlet entitled a Vindication of the Divine Attributes; in some Remarks on the Archbishop of Dublin’s Sermon entitled Divine Predestination, &c. He published likewise a Discourse concerning the Consecration of Churches, showing what is meant by dedicating them, with the Grounds of that Office. He died in 1720. Archbishop King, as appears by his correspondence with Swift, was a man of humour, and many of his witty sayings were at one time current.

King, Dr William, principal of St Mary’s Hall, Oxford, son of the Reverend Peregrine King, was born at Stepney in Middlesex, in the year 1685. He was made doctor of law’s in 1715; became secretary to the Duke of Ormond and Earl of Arran, as chancellors of the university; and was made principal of St Mary’s Hall on the death of Dr Hudson in 1719. When he stood as candidate for member of parliament for the university, he resigned his office of secretary, but retained his other preferment, and it was all he did enjoy, till the time of his death. Dr Clarke, who opposed him, carried the election; and after this disappointment, he, in the year 1727, went over to Ireland, where he is said to have written an epic poem called The Toast, which was a political satire, printed and given away to his friends, but never sold. On the dedication of Dr Radcliffe’s library, in 1749, he spoke a Latin oration in the theatre of Oxford, which was received with the highest acclamations; but it was otherwise treated when printed, for he was attacked in several pamphlets on account of it. Again, at the contested election for Oxfordshire in 1755, his attachment to the old interest drew on him the resentment of the new, and he was libelled in newspapers and pamphlets, against which he defended himself in an Apology, and warmly retaliated on his adversaries. He wrote several other things, and died in 1762. He was a polite scholar, an excellent orator, an elegant and easy writer, and was esteemed by the first men of his time for his learning and wit.

King, Peter, lord high chancellor of Great Britain, the son of an eminent grocer and salter, was born at Exeter in 1669, and bred up for some years to his father’s business; but his inclination to learning proved so strong that he laid out all the money he could spare in books, and devoted every moment of his leisure hours to study. He thus became an excellent scholar before the world suspected any such thing; and gave the public a proof of his skill in church history, by his Inquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity, and Worship of the Primitive Church, that flourished within the first three hundred years after Christ (London, 1691, in 8vo). This was written with a view to promote the scheme of a comprehension of the Dissenters. He afterwards published the second part’ of the Inquiry; and having desired, in his preface, to be shown, either publicly or privately, any mistakes he might have committed, that request was first complied with by Mr Edmund Elys, between whom and our author there passed several letters upon the subject, in

1692, which were published by Mr Elys in 1694, under the title of Letters on several Subjects. But the most formal and elaborate answer to the Inquiry appeared afterwards, in a work entitled Original Draught of the Primitive Church.

His acquaintance with Mr Locke, to whom he was related, and who left him half his library at his death, was of great advantage to him. By the advice of that great philosopher, after he had been some time in Holland, he applied himself to the study of the law, in which profession his learning and diligence soon made him noticed. In the two last parliaments of the reign of King William, and in five parliaments during the reign of Queen Anne, he served as burgess for Beer-Alston in Devonshire. In 1702, he published at London, without his name, his History of the Apostles’ Creed, with critical observations on its several articles; a work which is highly esteemed. In 1708 he was chosen recorder of the city of London; and, in 1710, he was one of the members of the House of Commons at the trial of Dr Sacheverel. In 1714 he was appointed lord chief justice of the common pleas; and the April following he was made one of the privy council. In 1715 he was created a peer, by the title of Lord King, Baron of Ockham in Surrey, and appointed lord high chancellor of Great Britain, in which situation he continued till 1733, when he resigned. He died at Ockham, in Surrey, in the year 1734.

Books of Kings, two canonical books of the Old Testament, so called because they contain the history of the kings of Israel and Judah, from the beginning of the reign of Solomon till the Babylonian captivity, that is, for the space of nearly six hundred years. The first book of Kings contains the latter part of the life of David, and his death; the flourishing state of the Israelites under Solomon, his building and dedicating the temple of Jerusalem, his shameful defection from the true religion, and the sudden decay of the Jewish nation after his death, when it was divided into two kingdoms. The rest of the book is occupied in relating the acts of four kings of Judah and eight of Israel. The second book, which is a continuation of the same history, is a relation of the memorable acts of sixteen kings of Judah, and twelve of Israel, and the end of both kingdoms, by the carrying off the ten tribes captive into Assyria by Shalmanasar, and the other two into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. It is probable that these books were composed by Ezra, who extracted them out of the public records which had been kept of what passed in that nation.