ABSTRACT
Gregory King’s early life is reasonably well documented in his own account-no doubt not completely objective in its contents. He was born in Lichfield in 1648, the son of a man who was apparently a competent mathematician, but who earned his livelihood by surveying, making sundials, teaching writing and book-keeping and occasionally designing gardens. Gregory King spent 5 years with Dugdale, attending him on his visitations, and learning French and heraldry. When this work came to an end, in 1667, he took service with Lord Hatton, who was compiling a series of arms of the nobility. The two main manuscript working-journals now extant are replete with computations and analyses, and clearly date from the period during which the Observations were being written. Finally-and no less indicative of his intellectual integrity-though his communicated results were in substantial degree presented without explanation of the bases of calculations, he was fully prepared to explain how he had arrived at his estimates.
