Peter King, 1st Baron King, (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.
A distant relative of the philosopher John Locke, King entered Parliament in 1700 as member of Parliament for Bere Alston and became associated with the Whig interest. As Lord Chancellor, King supported the Hanoverian succession and the established Church of England. King remained in office until 1733, a year before his death.
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Life
King 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.