In 1661 King was elected MP for Harwich again in the Cavalier Parliament. He was commissioner for corporations for Essex from 1662 to 1663 and commissioner for assessment for Harwich from 1663 to 1679. King's parliamentary career was characterised by a pursuit of parliamentary income and suspicions of financial irregularity. He was one of the instigators of the Royal Fishery Company on which Samuel Pepys published a highly critical report in 1664. Pepys found King had hung on to £429 of voluntary subscriptions and "insinuated in his accounts" that he had assigned the lease of his house worth £700 at Harwich to the Fishing Company . Pepys suggested it would be useful "to inquire whether this house was not long ago otherwise disposed of by him" and pointed out another instance where King was defrauding the Company.
