of Mexico by the Israelites. The book cost King upwards of 32,000l. and his life. Oppressed with debt, he was arrested at the suit of a paper manufacturer, and lodged in the sheriff's prison, Dublin, where he died of typhus fever on 27 Feb. 1837, and was buried at Mitchelstown. He was unmarried.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. vii. 537–8; Ann. Reg. 1837; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biog. p. 275; Allibone's Dict.]
KING, Mrs. FRANCES ELIZABETH (1757–1821),authoress. [See under King, Richard, 1748–1810.]
KING, GREGORY (1648–1712), herald, genealogist, engraver, and statistician, born at Lichfield, Staffordshire, on 15 Dec. 1648, was eldest son of Gregory King of that city, by his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of J. Andrews of Sandwich, Kent. His father, an accomplished mathematician, gained a livelihood by surveying land, laying out ornamental gardens, and constructing sun-dials, but his habits were irregular and his income precarious. The son was educated under Thomas Bevans, head-master of Lichfield grammar school. When he left school at the age of fourteen he knew Latin and Greek and the Hebrew grammar. In December 1662 he became clerk to Sir William Dugdale [q. v.], Norroy king of arms. Dugdale held a visitation of the whole of his province between 1662 and 1666, and in many of the northern counties his little clerk, who was very small for his age, delineated ‘the prospects of towns, castles, and other remarquables,’ besides emblazoning armorial bearings on vellum.
Between 1667 and 1669 King was in the service of Lord Hatton, who was forming a collection of the arms of the nobility. In 1669 he returned to Lichfield, where he supported himself by teaching writing and arithmetic, by painting hatchments, signs, and coaches, and by giving instruction in the decipherment of ancient records. He likewise transcribed the family muniments of Walter Chetwynd [q. v.] of Ingestre. At the end of 1669 he became the steward, auditor, and secretary of the Dowager Lady Gerard of Gerard's Bromley, widow of Charles, and mother of Digby, lord Gerard. He resided with the lady's father, George Digby of Sandon, Staffordshire, until August 1672, when he came back to London. On the recommendation of Hollar the engraver, John Ogilby the printer employed him to etch plates for Sir Peter Leycester's ‘Historical Antiquities;’ for the edition of ‘Æsop's Fables’ (2 vols. London, 1672–3, 8vo), the ‘Description of Persia’ (1673), and for a new edition of Camden's ‘Britannia.’ While engaged on the last work King travelled into Essex with a surveyor named Falgate, and in the winter of 1672 they constructed maps of Ipswich in Suffolk and Malden in Essex, which were afterwards ‘very curiously finished.’ King also assisted in drawing the map of London, subsequently engraved by Hollar, and he superintended its production. He projected and managed a lottery of books to recoup Ogilby for the expenses incurred in these undertakings, and a similar lottery which he superintended for Bristol fair proved very profitable. He next edited the ‘Book of Roads,’ digesting the notes and directing the engravings, three or four of which he executed with his own hand, these being his earliest experiments with the graver. He undertook on his own account the map of Westminster (1675), and with the assistance of Falgate completed it in a year. Afterwards he was employed in engraving the letter-work of maps. He continued to engrave from 1675 to 1680, and compiled a portion of Francis Sandford's ‘Genealogical History of the Kings and Queens of England,’ while his friend the author was prostrated by illness.
London was indebted to King for the laying out of the streets and squares in Soho Fields. Soho Square was formerly called King's Square, and Rimbault suggests that Greek Street, formerly Grig Street, was so called after King's christian name. Many of the first building articles or leases in various parts of London were drawn up by him.
At the College of Arms he formed a close friendship with Thomas Lee, Chester herald; and the Earl of Norwich, deputy earl-marshal, on Lee's recommendation, created him Rouge Dragon pursuivant on 24 June 1677 (Noble, College of Arms, p. 294). In Michaelmas term of that year King brought an action for libel in the court of king's bench against one who had charged him with cheating (Keble, Reports, ii. 265).
In 1680 he removed from his house in Covent Garden to the college. He assisted Sir Henry St. George, Norroy king of arms, in his visitations in 1681 and 1682; and in 1684 he was nominated by the Duke of Norfolk to the office of registrar of the College of Arms. He was consulted about the coronation of James II and his queen, and was the principal author of the superb volume containing descriptions and splendid engravings of that ceremony (London, 1687, fol.), though he allowed Francis Sandford to affix his name to the title-page. King contented himself with one-third of the profits, but the book
