(c.1753 - 1823), quondam Jacob Rey, money lender and pamphleteer; m. 1 Deborah Lara (div. c.1785), 2 c.1785 Ldy. Jane Rochfort (1737 - 1828), dau. of 1st E. of Belvidere [I] and wid. of 2nd E. Lanesborough [I] (see Brinsley Butler); d. Florence.
- 1785 - 1823 Leghorn (by 17 Aug. 1785), Florence, Naples ( - 2 Jan. 1787)
'Mr King, a Jew, the author of the letters signed Neptune and of a most scurrilous libel against Fox', left his wife and three children to marry Lady Lanesborough, a widow. They had lived 'sometime' at Leghorn by 1785 when King's first wife arrived with two of their children on 17 August. King first took out 'as it is called, the privileges of the free port of Leghorn, which protects him against any prosecution for all crimes committed before, out of this state', but then, it appears, went through a Jewish divorce at Leghorn.1
One of Lady Lanesborough's daughters, Sophia, married the marchese Luigi Marescotti in 1787. On 2 January 1787 Emma Hart said that he and Lady Lanesborough left a number of debts behind them ('innumerable villanys') as they left Naples.2 The World Fashionable Advertiser, 5 February 1787, listing English visitors to Naples gave 'One King - a Jew / And last, though not least in some things - Lady Lanesborough'. They were pilloried as 'the degenerate Countess' and 'the Fugitive Israelite'.3 King and Lady Lanesborough appear to have stayed in Italy; both died in Florence, he in August 1823 and she on 1 January 1828. Lady Lanesbborough was buried in the Leghorn cemetery, her gravestone making no mention of John King.4
1. Wal.Corr., 25:601 - 2. 2. Morrison, 1:124 (no.158). ASN E 684. 3. Town and Country Mag., 19[1787]:297. 4. Leghorn Inscr., 13.