Definition
A king of record is a sovereign whose title and authority are established by formal legal recognition — documented in the official records of the realm or acknowledged by courts and legal instruments as the lawful monarch. The term distinguishes a ruler whose claim rests on recognized, documented legitimacy from one who holds power by force or informal practice alone.
More broadly, "of record" as a legal modifier attaches to any person, entity, or instrument whose status has been formally entered into an official legal register or court record, conferring legal effect, priority, or enforceability by virtue of that entry. The phrase "king of record" applies this general principle to sovereign status.
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Common Confusion
The term should not be confused with the broader phrase "of record," which attaches freely to attorneys (attorney of record), owners (owner of record), courts (court of record), and instruments (deed of record). A "king of record" is a specific application of this framework to sovereign legitimacy — rare in modern usage but historically significant in disputes over succession, regency, and rival claims to a throne. Researchers encountering the phrase in historical sources should resist reading it as merely ceremonial; it carried legal weight in determining which sovereign's writs, grants, and judgments were valid.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in historical legal sources dealing with medieval and early modern English law, where questions of which claimant held the throne "of record" had direct consequences for the validity of royal grants, attainders, acts of Parliament, and judicial proceedings. A grant made by a king not of record could be challenged as void; attainders passed under a disputed king could be reversed.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should note:
— The concept connects directly to the recording and priority framework treated in the Real Estate encyclopedia (realestate_40). The logic of "of record" as conferring legal superiority over competing claims is identical whether applied to a deed or a crown: formal entry into the recognized record defeats informal or prior unrecorded claims.
— In criminal law research, the idea of what is "of record" — and what can be erased from it — is the foundation of expungement and sealing doctrine (criminal_243; criminal_251). The phrase "of record" carries presumptive permanence; remedies that modify the record are exceptions requiring specific authorization.
— Historical sources may use "king of record" in contexts that presuppose familiarity with rival dynastic claims (Lancaster vs. York, for instance) without explaining them. Researchers should treat the phrase as a legal term of art, not a rhetorical flourish.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence do not provide a direct entry for "king of record." The source material returned under this search references "faint pleader" — a fraudulent or collusive manner of pleading under 3 Edw. I c. 19 — which is an unrelated term. This absence is itself informative: the phrase "king of record" was likely treated by 19th-century legal lexicographers as a self-evident application of the "of record" principle rather than a term requiring independent definition.
The constituent phrase "of record" is well-supported in the historical dictionary literature as denoting legal existence by virtue of formal entry — a court of record being the paradigm case, defined by its authority to fine and imprison and by the binding effect of its enrolled proceedings. Applying this to sovereign status was a natural extension in a legal culture where title to land, office, and crown alike depended on documentary evidence of right.
What the historical dictionaries miss: the political volatility of the concept. Whether a particular king was "of record" was not always settled, and the legal consequences of that uncertainty — for titles granted, forfeitures declared, and judgments rendered — occupied courts and counsel well into the Tudor period and beyond.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia: Recording — Priority, Indexing, and the Effect of Recording on Third Parties (realestate_40)
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Expungement, Sealing, and Record Clearing (criminal_243)
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Juvenile Records — Confidentiality and Sealing (criminal_251)
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