Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/138

 did not appear until just before the landing of the Prince of Orange, and the authors barely cleared their expenses, which amounted to nearly 600l. (, pp. 323, 324).

In 1687 King assisted Sir Henry St. George in his visitation of London. After the revolution he was engaged in the ceremonial of William and Mary's coronation, and succeeded Sandford, who resigned on account of his Jacobite sympathies, in the office of Lancaster herald. He took part in the investitures with the insignia of the Garter of the elector of Brandenburg (afterwards Frederick I, king of Prussia) in 1689 and of the Duke of Zell in 1691. He was sent to Dresden on similar business in 1693, and invested John George, elector of Saxony, with the insignia of the order in January; the elector died next year, and the installation at Windsor took place on 5 July 1694, after his death. A quarrel with the earl-marshal respecting the arrangements at the funeral of Queen Mary led to King's dismissal from the office of registrar, and a charge brought against him by the earl of embezzling fees caused him to be temporarily suspended from service in the college. He became, however, secretary to the commissioners for taking and stating the public accounts and also secretary to the controllers of the accounts of the army. He was in 1710 a candidate for the patent of Clarencieux, and wrote a long letter to Harley stating his claims, but, as his biographer, Chalmers, puts it, the wit of his rival, Sir John Vanbrugh, ‘prevailed over King's arithmetick.’ He died on 29 Aug. 1712, and was buried in the chancel of the church of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, where a handsome mural monument of stone, with an inscription in English, was erected to his memory.

He married, first, 1 July 1674, Anne, daughter of John Powel, of Firley in the parish of Forthampton, Gloucestershire; secondly, in 1701, Frances Grattan, by whom he had three children, who all died in infancy.

King was a man of remarkable versatility. As a herald and genealogist he was the equal of his master, Sir William Dugdale; and as a statistician he surpassed Sir William Petty.

His chief statistical work is entitled ‘Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696’ (, Cat. of MSS. pt. v. for 1839, p. 62). It supplies the best account accessible of the population and wealth of England at the close of the seventeenth century. Some extracts from it were published by Charles Davenant, but the treatise itself was not published till 1801, when George Chalmers added it, with a notice of King, to his ‘Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain.’ Chalmers, who drew attention to King's originality as a political arithmetician, his local knowledge, and scientific methods, appended to the ‘Observations’ two other tracts by King, viz. ‘A Scheme of the Inhabitants of the City of Gloucester,’ laid before the board of trade in 1696, and ‘A Computation of the Endowed Hospitals and Almshouses in England,’ presented to the same board in 1697. Another of King's statistical undertakings was ‘A Scheme of the Rates and Duties granted to his Majesty upon Marriages, Births, and Burials, and upon Batchelors and Widowers, for the term of five years from May 1, 1695,’ London, 1695, fol. An interesting account of the chief conclusions in King's ‘very valuable estimate’ is given by Mr. Lecky in his ‘England in the Eighteenth Century,’ i. 560–1.

King's heraldic or genealogical works are: 1. ‘The Order of the Installation of Prince George of Denmark, Charles, Duke of Somerset, and George, Duke of Northumberland, at Windsor, April 8, 1684,’ London, 1684, fol. 2. ‘The Order of the Installation of Henry, Duke of Norfolk, Henry, Earl of Peterborough, and Laurence, Earl of Rochester, at Windsor, July 22, 1685,’ London, 1685, fol. 3. ‘An Account of the Ceremony of investing his Electoral Highness of Brandenburgh with the Order of the Garter,’ London, 1690, 4to. 4. ‘The usual Ceremony observed by the Lord High Steward and Peers of Great Britain, the officers of the Court, their assistants and attendants, on the Arraignment and Trial of some Peer or Peeress … for Treason or Felony,’ London, 1746, fol. 5. ‘The Visitation of Worcester, begun by Thomas May, Chester, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon … 1682, and finished by Henry Dethick, Richmond, and the said Rouge Dragon … 1683. With additions by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart. Edited by W. C. Metcalfe,’ Exeter (privately printed), 1883, 4to. 6. ‘The Visitation of the County of Gloucester, begun by Thomas May, Chester, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon … and finished by Henry Dethick, Richmond, and the said Rouge Dragon. With additions. Edited by T. Fitz-Roy Fenwick, and W. C. Metcalfe,’ Exeter, 1884, 4to.

Some of King's collections are printed in Arthur Collins's ‘Proceedings, Precedents, and Arguments in Claims and Controversies concerning Baronies by Writ and other Honours,’ 1734.

An autobiography bringing King's career down to his quarrel with the earl-marshal, entitled ‘Some Miscellaneous Notes of the Birth, Education, and Advancement of Gre-