Part 39

[11] "The LXX. of Kings is not a corrupt reproduction of the Hebrew _receptus_, but represents another recension of the text. Neither recension can claim absolute superiority. The defects of the LXX. lie on the surface, and are greatly aggravated by the condition of the Greek text, which has suffered much in transmission, and particularly has in many places been corrected after the later Greek versions that express the Hebrew _receptus_ of the 2nd century of our era. Yet the LXX. not only preserves many good readings in detail, but throws much light on the long-continued process of redaction at the hand of successive editors or copyists of which the extant Hebrew of Kings is the outcome. Even the false readings of the Greek are instructive, for both recensions were exposed to corrupting influences of precisely the same kind" (W. R. SMITH).

[12] See W. R. Smith, _Journ. of Philology_, x. 209 sqq.; _Prophets of Israel_, p. 147. seq.; and K. Marti, _Ency. Bib._ art. "Chronology."

[13] Against earlier doubts by Havet (1878), Vernes (1887) and Horst (1888), see W. E. Addis, _Documents of Hexateuch_, ii. 2 sqq.; but the whole question has been reopened by E. Day (loc. cit. above) and R. H. Kennett (_Journ. Theol. Stud._, July 1906, 481 sqq.).

[14] See Kennett. _Journ. Theol. Stud._ 1905, pp. 169 sqq.; 1906, pp. 488 sqq.; and cf. J. A. Montgomery, _The Samaritans_ (1907), pp. 47, 53 seq., 57, 59, 61 sqq.

KING'S BENCH, COURT OF, in England, one of the superior courts of common law. This court, the most ancient of English courts--in its correct legal title, "the court of the king before the king himself," _coram ipso rege_--is far older than parliament itself, for it can be traced back clearly, both in character and the essence of its jurisdiction, to the reign of King Alfred. The king's bench, and the two offshoots of the _aula regia_, the common pleas and the exchequer, for many years possessed co-ordinate jurisdiction, although there were a few cases in which each had exclusive authority, and in point of dignity precedence was given to the court of king's bench, the lord chief justice of which was also styled lord chief justice of England, being the highest permanent judge of the Crown. The court of exchequer attended to the business of the revenue, the common pleas to private actions between citizens, and the king's bench retained criminal cases and such other jurisdiction as had not been divided between the other two courts. By an act of 1830 the court of exchequer chamber was constituted as a court of appeal for errors in law in all three courts. Like the court of exchequer, the king's bench assumed by means of an ingenious fiction the jurisdiction in civil matters which properly belonged to the common pleas.

Under the Judicature Act 1873 the court of king's bench became the king's bench division of the High Court of Justice. It consists of the lord chief justice and fourteen puisne judges. It exercises original jurisdiction and also appellate jurisdiction from the county courts and other inferior courts. By the act of 1873 (sec. 45) this appellate jurisdiction is conferred upon the High Court generally, but in practice it is exercised by a divisional court of the king's bench division only. The determination of such appeals by the High Court is final, unless leave to appeal is given by the court which heard the appeal or by the court of appeal. There was an exception to this rule as regards certain orders of quarter sessions, the history of which involves some complication. But by sec. 1 (5) of the Court of Session Act 1894 the rule applies to all cases where there is a right of appeal to the High Court from any court or person. It may be here mentioned that if leave is given to appeal to the court of appeal there is a further appeal to the House of Lords, except in bankruptcy (Bankruptcy Appeals (County Courts) Act 1884), when the decision of the court of appeal on appeal from a divisional court sitting in appeal is made final and conclusive.

There are masters in the king's bench division. Unlike the masters in the chancery division, they have original jurisdiction, and are not attached to any particular judge. They hear applications in chambers, act as taxing masters and occasionally as referees to conduct inquiries, take accounts, and assess damages. There is an appeal from the master to the judge in chambers. Formerly there was an appeal from the judge in chambers to a divisional court in every case and thence to the court of appeal, until the multiplication of appeals in small interlocutory matters became a scandal. Under the Supreme Court of Judicature (Procedure) Act 1894 there is no right of appeal to the court of appeal in any interlocutory matters (except those mentioned in subs. (b)) without the leave of the judge or of the court of appeal, and in matters of "practice and procedure" the appeal lies (with leave) directly to the court of appeal from the judge in chambers.

KINGSBRIDGE, a market town in the Totnes parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, 48 m. S.S.W. of Exeter, on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 3025. It lies 6 m. from the English Channel, at the head of an inlet or estuary which receives only small streams, on a sharply sloping site. The church of St Edmund is mainly Perpendicular, but there are Transitional Norman and Early English portions. The town-hall contains a natural history museum. A house called Pindar Lodge stands on the site of the birthplace of John Wolcot ("Peter Pindar," 1738-1819). William Cookworthy (1705-1780), a porcelain manufacturer, the first to exploit the deposits of kaolin in the south-west of England, was also born at Kingsbridge. The township of Dodbrooke, included within the civil parish, adjoins Kingsbridge on the north-east. Some iron-founding and ship-building, with a coasting trade, are carried on.

Kingsbridge (_Kyngysbrygge_) was formerly included in the manor of Churchstow, the first trace of its separate existence being found in the Hundred Roll of 1276, which records that in the manor of Churchstow there is a new borough, which has a Friday market and a separate assize of bread and ale. The name Kingsbridge however does not appear till half a century later. When Kingsbridge became a separate parish is not certainly known, but it was before 1414 when the church was rebuilt and consecrated to St Edmund. In 1461 the abbot of Buckfastleigh obtained a Saturday market at Kingsbridge and a three-days' fair at the feast of St Margaret, both of which are still held. The manor remained in possession of the abbot until the Dissolution, when it was granted to Sir William Petre. Kingsbridge was never represented in parliament or incorporated by charter, the government being by a portreeve, and down to the present day the steward of the manor holds a court leet and court baron and appoints a portreeve and constables. In 1798 the town mills were converted into a woollen manufactory, which up to recent times produced large quantities of cloth, and the serge manufacture was introduced early in the 19th century. The town has been famous from remote times for a beverage called "white ale." Included in Kingsbridge is the little town of Dodbrooke, which at the time of the Domesday Survey had a population of 42, and a flock of 108 sheep and 27 goats; and in 1257 was granted a Wednesday market and a fair at the Feast of St Mary Magdalene.

See "Victoria County History": _Devonshire; Kingsbridge and Sulcombe, with the intermediate Estuary, historically and topographically depicted_ (Kingsbridge, 1819); S. F. Fox, _Kingsbridge Estuary_ (Kingsbridge, 1864).

KING'S COUNTY, a county of Ireland in the province of Leinster, bounded N. by Meath and Westmeath, W. by Roscommon, Galway and Tipperary (the boundary with the first two counties being the river Shannon); S. by Tipperary and Queen's County, and E. by Kildare. The area is 493,999 acres or about 772 sq. m. The greater part of the county is included in the central plain of Ireland. In the south-east the Slieve Bloom Mountains form the boundary between King's County and Queen's County, and run into the former county from south-west to north-east for a distance of about 20 m. consisting of a mass of lofty and precipitous crags through which there are two narrow passes, the Black Gap and the Gap of Glandine. In the north-east Croghan Hill, a beautiful green eminence, rises to a height over 700 ft. The remainder of the county is flat, but a range of low hills crosses its north-eastern division to the north of the Barrow. In the centre of the county from east to west a large portion is occupied by the Bog of Allen. The county shares in the advantage of the navigation of the Shannon, which skirts its western side. The Brosna, which issues from Loch Ennell in Westmeath, enters the county near the town of Clara, and flowing south-westwards across its north-west corner, discharges itself into the Shannon after receiving the Clodagh and the Broughill. A small portion of the north-eastern extremity is skirted by the upper Boyne. The Barrow forms the south-eastern boundary with Queen's County. The Little Brosna, which rises in the Slieve Bloom Mountains, forms the boundary of King's County with Tipperary, and falls into the Shannon.

This county lies in the great Carboniferous Limestone plain, with clay-soils and bogs upon its surface, and many drier deposits of esker-gravels rising as green hills above the general level. The Slieve Bloom Mountains, consisting of Old Red Sandstone with Silurian inliers, form a bold feature in the south. North of Philipstown, the prominent mass of Croghan Hill is formed of basic volcanic rocks contemporaneous with the Carboniferous Limestone, and comparable with those in Co. Limerick.

Notwithstanding the large area occupied by bogs, the climate is generally healthy, and less moist than that of several neighbouring districts. The whole of the county would appear to have been covered formerly by a vast forest, and the district bordering on Tipperary is still richly wooded. The soil naturally is not of great fertility except in special cases, but is capable of being rendered so by the judicious application of bog and lime manures according to its special defects. It is generally either a deep bog or a shallow gravelly loam. On the borders of the Slieve Bloom Mountains there are some very rich and fertile pastures, and there are also extensive grazing districts on the borders of Westmeath, which are chiefly occupied by sheep. Along the banks of the Shannon there are some fine tracts of meadow land. With the exception of the tract occupied by the Bog of Allen, the remainder of the county is nearly all under tillage, the most productive portion being that to the north-west of the Hill of Croghan. The percentage of tillage to pasture is roughly as 1 to 2¼. Oats, barley and rye, potatoes and turnips, are all considerably grown; wheat is almost neglected, and the acreage of all crops has a decreasing tendency. Cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are bred increasingly; dairies are numerous in the north of the county, and the sheep are pastured chiefly in the hilly districts.

The county is traversed from S.E. to N.W. by the Portarlington, Tullamore, Clara and Athlone line of the Great Southern and Western railway, with a branch from Clara to Banagher; from Roscrea (Co. Tipperary) a branch of this company runs to Parsonstown (Birr); while the Midland Great Western has branches from its main line from Enfield (Co. Kildare) to Edenderry, and from Streamstown (Co. Westmeath) to Clara. The Grand Canal runs through the length of the county from east to west, entering the Shannon at Shannon harbour.

The population (65,563 in 1891; 60,187 in 1901), decreasing through emigration, includes about 89% of Roman Catholics. The decrease is rather below the average. The chief towns are Tullamore (the county town, pop. 4639) and Birr or Parsonstown (4438), with Edenderry and Clara. Philipstown near Tullamore was formerly the capital of the county and was the centre of the kingdom of Offaly. The county comprises 12 baronies and 46 civil parishes. It returns two members to parliament, for the Birr and Tullamore divisions respectively. Previous to the Union, King's County returned six members to parliament, two for the county, and two for each of the boroughs of Philipstown and Banagher. Assizes are held at Tullamore and quarter sessions at Parsonstown, Philipstown and Tullamore. The county is divided into the Protestant dioceses of Killaloe, Meath and Ossory; and the Roman Catholic dioceses of Ardagh, Kildare and Leighlin, Ossory and Clonfert.

King's County, with portions of Tipperary, Queen's County and Kildare, at an early period formed one kingdom under the name of Offaly, a title which it retained after the landing of the English. Subsequently it was known as Glenmallery, Western Glenmallery pretty nearly corresponding to the present King's County, and Eastern Glenmallery to Queen's County. By a statute of 1556 the western district was constituted a shire under the name of King's County in honour of Philip, consort of Queen Mary--the principal town, formerly the seat of the O'Connors, being called Philipstown; and the eastern district at the same time received the name of Queen's County in honour of Mary. Perhaps the oldest antiquarian relic is the large pyramid of white stones in the Slieve Bloom Mountains called the Temple of the Sun or the White Obelisk. There are a considerable number of Danish raths, and a chain of moats commanding the passes of the bogs extended throughout the county. On the borders of Tipperary is an ancient causeway leading presumably to a crannog or lake-dwelling. The most important ecclesiastical ruins are those of the seven churches of Clonmacnoise (q.v.) on the Shannon in the north-west of the county, where an abbey was founded by St Kieran in 648, and where the remains include those of churches, two round towers, crosses, inscribed stones and a castle. Among the more famous religious houses in addition to Clonmacnoise were Durrow Abbey, founded by St Columba in 550; Monasteroris founded in the 14th century by John Bermingham, earl of Louth; and Seirkyran Abbey, founded in the beginning of the 5th century. The principal old castles are Rathmore, probably the most ancient in the county; Banagher, commanding an important pass on the Shannon; Leap Castle, in the Slieve Bloom Mountains; and Birr or Parsonstown, now the seat of the earl of Rosse.

KINGSDOWN, THOMAS PEMBERTON LEIGH, BARON (1793-1867), the eldest son of Thomas Pemberton, a chancery barrister, was born in London on the 11th of February 1793. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1816, and at once acquired a lucrative equity practice. He sat in parliament for Rye (1831-1832) and for Ripon (1835-1843). He was made a king's counsel in 1829. Of a retiring disposition, he seldom took part in parliamentary debates, although in 1838 in the case of _Stockdale_ v. _Hansard_ he took a considerable part in upholding the privileges of parliament. In 1841 he accepted the post of attorney-general for the duchy of Cornwall. In 1842 a relative, Sir Robert H. Leigh, left him a life interest in his Wigan estates, amounting to some £15,000 a year; he then assumed the additional surname of Leigh. Having accepted the chancellorship of the duchy of Cornwall and a privy councillorship, he became a member of the judicial committee of the privy council, and for nearly twenty years devoted his energies and talents to the work of that body; his judgments, more particularly in prize cases, of which he took especial charge, are remarkable not only for legal precision and accuracy, but for their form and expression. In 1858, on the formation of Lord Derby's administration, he was offered the Great Seal, but declined; in the same year, however, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Kingsdown. He died at his seat, Lorry Hill, near Sittingbourne, Kent, on the 7th of October 1867. Lord Kingsdown never married, and his title became extinct.

See _Recollections of Life at the Bar and in Parliament_, by Lord Kingsdown (privately printed for friends, 1868); _The Times_ (8th of October 1867).

KING'S EVIL, an old, but not yet obsolete, name given to the scrofula, which in the popular estimation was deemed capable of cure by the royal touch. The practice of "touching" for the scrofula, or "King's Evil," was confined amongst the nations of Europe to the two Royal Houses of England and France. As the monarchs of both these countries owned the exclusive right of being anointed with the pure chrism, and not with the ordinary sacred oil, it has been surmised that the common belief in the sanctity of the chrism was in some manner inseparably connected with faith in the healing powers of the royal touch. The kings both of France and England claimed a sole and special right to this supernatural gift: the house of France deducing its origin from Clovis (5th century) and that of England declaring Edward th e Confessor the first owner of this virtue. That the Saxon origin of the royal power of healing was the popular theory in England is evident from the striking and accurate description of the ceremony in _Macbeth_ (act vi. scene iii.). Nevertheless the practice of this rite cannot be traced back to an earlier date than the reign of Edward III. in England, and of St Louis (Louis IX.) in France; consequently, it is believed that the performance of healing by the touch emanated in the first instance from the French Crusader-King, whose miraculous powers were subsequently transmitted to his descendant and representative, Isabella of Valois, wife of Edward II. of England. In any case, Queen Isabella's son and heir, Edward III., claimant to the French throne through his mother, was the first English king to order a public display of an attribute that had hitherto been associated with the Valois kings alone. From his reign dates the use of the "touch-piece," a gold medal given to the sufferer as a kind of talisman, which was originally the angel coin, stamped with designs of St Michael and of a three-masted ship.

The actual ceremony seems first to have consisted of the sovereign's personal act of washing the diseased flesh with water, but under Henry VII. the use of an ablution was omitted, and a regular office was drawn up for insertion in the Service Book. At the "Ceremonies for the Healing" the king now merely touched his afflicted subject in the presence of the court chaplain who offered up certain prayers and afterwards presented the touch-piece, pierced so that it might be suspended by a ribbon round the patient's neck. Henry VII.'s office was henceforth issued with variations from time to time under successive kings, nor did it disappear from certain editions of the Book of Common Prayer until the middle of the 18th century. The practice of the Royal Healing seems to have reached the height of its popularity during the reign of Charles II., who is stated on good authority to have touched over 100,000 strumous persons. So great a number of applicants becoming a nuisance to the Court, it was afterwards enacted that special certificates should in future be granted to individuals demanding the touch, and such certificates are occasionally to be found amongst old parish registers of the close of the 17th century. After the Revolution, William of Orange refused to touch, and referred all applicants to the exiled James II. at St Germain; but Queen Anne touched frequently, one of her patients being Dr Samuel Johnson in his infancy. The Hanoverian kings declined to touch, and there exists no further record of any ceremony of healing henceforward at the English court. The practice, however, was continued by the exiled Stuarts, and was constantly performed in Italy by James Stuart, "the Old Pretender," and by his two sons, Charles and Henry (Cardinal York). (H. M. V.)

KINGSFORD, WILLIAM (1819-1898), British engineer and Canadian historian, was born in London on the 23rd of December 1819. He first studied architecture, but disliking the confinement of an office enlisted in the 1st Dragoon Guards, obtaining his discharge in Canada in 1841. After serving for a time in the office of the city surveyor of Montreal he made a survey for the Lachine canal (1846-1848), and was employed in the United States in the building of the Hudson River railroad in 1849, and in Panama on the railroad being constructed there in 1851. In 1853 he was surveyor and, afterwards district superintendent for the Grand Trunk railroad, remaining in the employment of that company until 1864. The following year he went to England but returned to Canada in 1867 in the hope of taking part in the construction of the Intercolonial Railway. In this he was unsuccessful, but from 1872 to 1879 he held a government post in charge of the harbours of the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence. He had previously written books on engineering and topographical subjects, and in 1880 he began to study the records of Canadian history at Ottawa. Among other books he published _Canadian Archaeology_ (1886) and _Early Bibliography of Ontario_ (1892). But the great work of his life was a _History of Canada_ in 10 volumes (1887-1897), ending with the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841. Kingsford died on the 28th of September 1898.

KINGSLEY, CHARLES (1819-1875), English clergyman, poet and novelist, was born on the 12th of June 1819, at Holne vicarage, Dartmoor, Devon. His early years were spent at Barnack in the Fen country and at Clovelly in North Devon. The scenery of both made a great impression on his mind, and was afterwards described with singular vividness in his writings. He was educated at private schools and at King's College, London, after his father's promotion to the rectory of St Luke's, Chelsea. In 1838 he entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, and in 1842 he was ordained to the curacy of Eversley in Hampshire, to the rectory of which he was not long afterwards presented, and this, with short intervals, was his home for the remaining thirty-three years of his life. In 1844 he married Fanny, daughter of Pascoe Grenfell, and in 1848 he published his first volume, _The Saint's Tragedy_. In 1859 he became chaplain to Queen Victoria; in 1860 he was appointed to the professorship of modern history at Cambridge, which he resigned in 1869; and soon after he was appointed to a canonry at Chester. In 1873 this was exchanged for a canonry at Westminster. He died at Eversley on the 23rd of January 1875.