WILLIAM SCROGGS.
It was positively asserted in his lifetime, and it has been often repeated
since, that Scroggs was the son of a butcher, and that he was so cruel as
a judge because he had been himself accustomed to kill calves and lambs
when he was a boy. Yet it is quite certain that this solution of Scroggs's
taste for blood is a pure fiction, for he was born and bred a gentleman.
His father was a squire, of respectable family and good estate, in
Oxfordshire. Young Scroggs was several years at a grammar school, and he
took a degree with some credit in the University of Oxford, having studied
first at Oriel, and then at Pembroke College. He was intended for the
church, and, in quiet times, might have died respected as a painstaking
curate, or as Archbishop of Canterbury. But, the civil war breaking out
while he was still under age, he enlisted in the king's cause, and
afterwards commanded a troop of horse, which did good service in several
severe skirmishes. Unfortunately, his morals did not escape the taint
which distinguished both men and officers on the Cavalier side. The
dissolute habits he had contracted unfitted him entirely for the
ecclesiastical profession, and he was advised to try his luck in the law.
He had a quick conception, a bold manner, and an enterprising mind; and
prophecies were uttered of his great success if he should exchange the
cuirass for the long robe. He was entered as a student at Gray's Inn, and
he showed that he was capable, by short fits, of keen application; but
his love of profligacy and of expense still continued, and both his health
and his finances suffered accordingly.
However, he contrived to be called to the bar; and some of his pot
companions being attorneys, they occasionally employed him in causes
likely to be won by a loud voice and an unscrupulous appeal to the
prejudices of the jury. He practised in the King's Bench, where, although
he now and then made a splashy speech, his business by no means increased
in the same ratio as his debts. "He was," says Roger North, "a great
voluptuary, his debaucheries egregious, and his life loose; which made the
Lord Chief Justice Hale detest him." Thinking that he might have a better
chance in the Court of Common Pleas, where the men in business were very
old and dull, he took the degree of the coif, and he was soon after made a
King's Serjeant. Still, however, he kept company with Ken, Guy, and the
high-court rakes, and his clients could not depend upon him. His visage
being comely, and his speech witty and bold, he was a favorite with
juries, and sometimes carried off wonderful verdicts; but, when he ought
to have been consulting his chamber in Serjeants' Inn, he was in a tavern
or gaming house, or worse place, near St. James's Palace. Thus his gains
were unsteady, and the fees which he received were speedily spent in
dissipation, so that he fell into a state of great pecuniary
embarrassment. On one occasion, he was arrested by a creditor in
Westminster Hall as he was about to enter his coach. The process being out
of the King's Bench, he complained to that court of a breach of his
privileges as a serjeant; but Lord Chief Justice Hale refused to discharge
him.
Meanwhile, Serjeant Scroggs was in high favor with Lord Shaftesbury's
enemies, who, on the commitment of that turbulent leader to the Tower for
breach of privilege, had gained a temporary advantage over him. Through
the agency of Chiffinch, superintendent of the secret intrigues of every
description which were carried on at Whitehall,[77] he had been introduced
to Charles II., and the merry monarch took pleasure in his licentious
conversation. What was of more importance to his advancement, he was
recommended to the Earl of Danby, the reigning prime minister, as a man
that might be useful to the government if he were made a judge. In
consequence, on the 23d of October, 1676, he was knighted, and sworn in a
justice of the Court of Common Pleas. Sir Allan Broderick, in a letter to
"the Honorable Lawrence Hyde," written a few days after, says, "Sir
William Scroggs, on Monday, being admitted judge, made so excellent a
speech that my Lord Northampton, then present, went from Westminster to
Whitehall immediately, and told the king he had, since his happy
restoration, caused many hundred sermons to be printed, and which together
taught not the people half so much loyalty; therefore, as a sermon,
desired his command to have it printed and published in all the market
towns in England."
Mr. Justice Scroggs gave himself little trouble with law business that
came before the court; but, in addressing grand juries on the circuit, he
was loud and eloquent against the proceedings of the "country party," and
he still continued to be frequently in the circle at Whitehall, where he
took opportunities not only to celebrate his own zeal, but to sneer at
Sir John Raynsford, the chief justice of the King's Bench, whose place he
was desirous to fill. Chiffinch, and his other patrons of the back-stairs,
were in the habit of sounding his praise, and asserting that he was the
only man who, as head of the King's Bench, could effectually cope with the
manoeuvres of Shaftesbury. This unconquerable intriguer, having been
discharged from custody, was again plotting against the government, was
preparing to set up the legitimacy of Monmouth, and was asserting that the
Duke of York should be set aside from the succession of the throne and
prosecuted as a Popish recusant.
The immediate cause of Raynsford's removal was the desire of the
government to have a chief justice of the King's Bench on whose vigor and
subserviency reliance could be placed, to counteract the apprehended
machinations of Shaftesbury.
On the 31st of May, 1678, Sir William Scroggs was sworn into the office,
and he remained in it for a period of three years. How he conducted
himself in civil suits is never once mentioned, for the attention of
mankind was entirely absorbed by his scandalous misbehavior as a criminal
judge. He is looked to with more loathing, if not with more indignation,
than Jeffreys, for in his abominable cruelties he was the sordid tool of
others, and in his subsequent career he had not the feeble excuse of
gratifying his own passions or advancing his own interests.
Although quite indifferent with regard to religion, and ready to have
declared himself a Papist, or a Puritan, or a Mahometan, according to the
prompting of his superiors, finding that the policy of the government was
to outbid Shaftesbury in zeal for Protestantism, he professed an implicit
belief in all the wonders revealed by Titus Oates, in the murder of Sir
Edmondbury Godfrey by Papists, and in the absolute necessity for cutting
off without pity all those who were engaged in the nefarious design to
assassinate the king, to burn London, and to extinguish the flames with
the blood of Protestants. He thought himself to be in the singularly
felicitous situation of pleasing the government while he received shouts
of applause from the mob. Burnet, speaking of his appointment, says, "It
was a melancholy thing to see so bad, so ignorant, and so poor a man
raised up to that great post. Yet he, now seeing how the stream ran, went
into it with so much zeal and heartiness that he was become the favorite
of the people."[78]
The first of the Popish plot judicial murders--which are more disgraceful
to England than the massacre of St. Bartholomew's is to France--was that
of Stayly, the Roman Catholic banker. Being tried at the bar of the Court
of King's Bench, Scroggs, according to the old fashion, which had gone out
during the Commonwealth, repeatedly put questions to the prisoner,
attempting to intimidate him, or to involve him in contradictions, or to
elicit from him some indiscreet admission of facts. A witness having
stated that "he had often heard the prisoner say he would lose his blood
for the king, and speak as loyally as man could speak," Scroggs exclaimed,
"_That is, when he spoke to a Protestant!_" In summing up, having run
himself out of breath by the violence with which he declaimed against the
Pope and the Jesuits, he thus apologised to the jury:--
"Excuse me, gentlemen, if I am a little warm, when perils are so many,
murders so secret. When things are transacted so closely, and our king is
in great danger, and religion is at stake, I may be excused for being a
little warm. You may think it better, gentlemen, to be warm here than in
Smithfield. Discharge your consciences as you ought to do. If guilty, let
the prisoner take the reward of his crime, for perchance it may be a
terror to the rest. I hope I shall never go to that heaven where men are
made saints for killing kings."
The verdict of _guilty_ being recorded, _Scroggs, C. J._, said, "Now, you
may die a Roman Catholic; and, when you come to die, I doubt you will be
found a priest too. The matter, manner, and all the circumstances of the
case, make it plain; you may harden your heart as much as you will, and
lift up your eyes, but you seem, instead of being sorrowful, to be
obstinate. Between God and your conscience be it; I have nothing to do
with that; my duty is only to pronounce judgment upon you according to
law--you shall be drawn to the place of execution, where you shall be
hanged by the neck, cut down alive," &c. &c.
The unhappy convict's friends were allowed to give him decent burial;[79]
but, because they said a mass for his soul, his body was, by order of Lord
Chief Justice Scroggs, taken out of the grave, his quarters were fixed
upon the gates of the city, and his head, at the top of a pole, was set on
London Bridge. So proud was Scroggs of this exploit, that he had an
account of it written, for which he granted an IMPRIMATUR, signed with his
own name.
I must not run the risk of disgusting my readers by a detailed account of
Scroggs's enormities on the trials of Coleman, Ireland, Whitebeard,
Langhord, and the other victims whom he sacrificed to the popular fury
under pretence that they were implicated in the Popish plot. Whether
sitting in his own court at Westminster, or at the Old Bailey in the city
of London, as long as he believed that government favored the
prosecutions, by a display of all the unworthy arts of cajoling and
intimidation he secured convictions. A modern historian, himself a Roman
Catholic priest, says, with temper and discrimination, "The Chief Justice
Scroggs, a lawyer of profligate habits and inferior acquirements, acted
the part of prosecutor rather than of judge. To the informers he behaved
with kindness, even with deference, suggesting to them explanations,
excusing their contradictions, and repelling the imputation on their
characters; but the prisoners were repeatedly interrupted and insulted;
their witnesses were browbeaten from the bench, and their condemnation was
generally hailed with acclamations, which the court rather encouraged than
repressed."
Meanwhile the chief justice went the circuit; and although the Popish plot
did not extend into the provinces, it may be curious to see how he
demeaned himself there. Andrew Bromwich being tried before him capitally,
for having administered the sacrament of the Lord's supper according to
the rites of the church of Rome, thus the dialogue between them
proceeded:--
_Prisoner._--"I desire your lordship will take notice of one thing, that I
have taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and have not refused any
thing which might testify my loyalty." _Scroggs, C. J._--"That will not
serve your turn; you priests have many tricks. What is that to giving a
woman the sacrament several times?" _Prisoner._--"My lord, it was no
sacrament unless I be a priest, of which there is no proof."
_Scroggs._--"What! you expect we should prove you a priest by witnesses
who saw you ordained? We know too much of your religion; no one gives the
sacrament in a wafer, except he be a Popish priest: you gave that woman
the sacrament in a wafer: _ergo_, you are a Popish priest." Thus he summed
up: "Gentlemen of the jury, I leave it upon your consciences whether you
will let priests escape, who are the very pests of church and state; you
had better be rid of one priest than three felons; so, gentlemen, I leave
it to you."
After a verdict of guilty, the chief justice said, "Gentlemen, you have
found a good verdict, and if I had been one of you I should have found the
same myself." He then pronounced sentence of death, describing what seemed
to be his own notion of the divine Being, while he imputed this blasphemy
to the prisoner: "You act as if God Almighty were some omnipotent
mischief, that delighted and would be served with the sacrifice of human
blood."
Scroggs was more and more eager, and "ranted on that side more
impetuously," when he observed that Lord Shaftesbury, who, although
himself too shrewd to believe in the Popish plot, had been working it
furiously for his own purposes, was taken into office on the formation of
Sir William Temple's new scheme of administration, and was actually made
president of the council. But he began to entertain a suspicion that the
king had been acting a part against his inclination and his judgment, and,
having ascertained the real truth upon this point, he showed himself
equally versatile and violent by suddenly going over to the opposite
faction. Roger North gives the following racy account of his conversion:--
"It fell out that when the Earl of Shaftesbury had sat some short time in
the council, and seemed to rule the roast, yet Scroggs had some qualms in
his political conscience; and coming from Windsor in the Lord Chief
Justice North's coach, he took the opportunity and desired his lordship to
tell him seriously if my Lord Shaftesbury had really so great power with
the king as he was thought to have. His lordship answered quick, 'No, my
lord, no more than your footman hath with you.' Upon that the other hung
his head, and, considering the matter, said nothing for a good while, and
then passed to other discourse. After that time he turned as fierce
against Oates and his plot as ever before he had ranted for it."
The first Popish plot case which came on after this conversion was the
trial of Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, against whom Oates and
Bedloe swore as stoutly as ever; making out a case which implicated, to a
certain degree, the queen herself. But Chief Justice Scroggs now sneered
at the marvellous memory or imagination of Oates; and, taking very little
notice, in his summing up, of the evidence of Bedloe, thus concluded:--
"If you are unsatisfied upon these things put together, and, well
weighing, you think the witnesses have not said true, you will do well to
acquit." _Bedloe._--"My lord, my evidence is not right summed up."
_Scroggs, C. J._--"I know not by what authority this man speaks.
Gentlemen, consider of your verdict."
An acquittal taking place, not only were Oates and Bedloe in a furious
rage, but the mob were greatly disappointed, for their belief in the plot
was still unshaken, and Scroggs, who had been their idol a few hours
ago,[80] was in danger of being torn in pieces by them. Although he
contrived to escape in safety to his house, he was assailed next morning
by broadsides, ballads sung in the streets, and libels in every imaginable
shape.
On the first day of the following term, he bound over in open court the
authors, printers, and signers of some of the worst of them, and made the
following speech:--
"I would have all men know that I am not so revengeful in my nature, nor
so nettled with this aspersion, that I could not have passed by this and
more; but the many scandalous libels that are abroad, and reflect on
public justice as well as upon my private self, make it the duty of my
place to defend the one, and the duty I owe to my reputation to vindicate
the other. This is the properest occasion for both. If once our courts of
justice come to be awed or swayed by vulgar noise,[81] it is falsely said
that men are tried for their lives or fortunes; they live by chance, and
enjoy what they have as the wind blows, and with the same certainty. Such
a base, fearful compliance made Felix, willing to please the people, leave
Paul bound. The people ought to be pleased with public justice, and not
justice seek to please the people. Justice should flow like a mighty
stream; and if the rabble, like an unruly wind, blow against it, the
stream they made rough will keep its course. I do not think that we yet
live in so corrupt an age that a man may not with safety be just, and
follow his conscience; if it be otherwise, we must hazard our safety to
preserve our integrity. As to Sir George Wakeman's trial, I am neither
afraid nor ashamed to mention it. I will appeal to all sober and
understanding men, and to the long robe more especially, who are the best
and properest judges in such cases, for the fairness and equality of my
carriage on that occasion. For those hireling scribblers who traduce
me,--who write to eat and lie for bread,--I intend to meet with them
another way, for, like vermin, they are only safe while they are secret.
And let those vipers, those printers and booksellers by whom they vend
their false and braided ware, look to it; they shall know that the law
wants not power to punish a libellous and licentious press, nor I
resolution to put the law in force. And this is all the answer fit to be
given (besides a whip) to those hackney writers and dull observators that
go as they are hired or spurred, and perform as they are fed. If there be
any sober and good men that are misled by false reports, or by subtlety
deceived into any misapprehensions concerning that trial or myself; I
should account it the highest pride and the most scornful thing in the
world if I did not endeavor to undeceive them. To such men, therefore, I
do solemnly declare in the seat of justice, where I would no more lie or
equivocate than I would to God at the holy altar, I followed my conscience
according to the best of my understanding in all that trial, without fear,
favor, or reward, _without the gift of one shilling, or the value of it
directly or indirectly, and without any promise or expectation
whatsoever_.[82] Do any think it an even wager, whether I am the greatest
villain in the world or not--one that would sell the life of the king, my
religion, and country, to Papists for money? He that says great places
have great temptations, has a little if not a false heart himself. Let us
pursue the discovery of the plot in God's name, and not balk any thing
where there is suspicion on reasonable grounds; but do not pretend to find
what is not, nor count him a turncoat that will not betray his conscience,
nor believe incredible things. Those are foolish men who think that an
acquittal must be wrong, and that there can be no justice without an
execution."
Many were bound over; but not more than one prosecution was brought to
trial--that against Richard Radley, who was convicted of speaking
scandalous words of the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs, and fined £200.
When the Earl of Castlemaine--the complaisant husband of the king's
mistress--was brought to trial for being concerned in the plot, Scroggs
was eager to get him off, still despising popular clamor. Bedloe being
utterly ruined in reputation, Dangerfield was now marched up, as the
second witness, to support Oates. He had been sixteen times convicted of
infamous offences; and, to render him competent, a pardon under the great
seal was produced. But the chief justice was very severe upon him, saying,
in summing up to the jury, "Whether this man be of a sudden become a saint
because he has become a witness, I leave that to you to consider. Now I
must tell you, though they have produced two witnesses, if you believe but
one, this is insufficient. In treason, there being two witnesses, the one
believed, the other disbelieved, may there be a conviction? I say, no. Let
us deal fairly and aboveboard, and so preserve men who are accused and not
guilty." The defendant being acquitted, the chief justice was again
condemned as a renegade.
He further made himself obnoxious to the charge of having gone over to the
Papists, by his conduct on the trial of Mrs. Elizabeth Cellier, who, if
she had been prosecuted while he believed that the government wished the
plot to be considered real, would unquestionably have been burned alive
for high treason, but now was the object of his especial protection and
favor. The second witness against her was Dangerfield, who, when he was
put into the box, before any evidence had been given to discredit him, was
thus saluted by Chief Justice Scroggs:--
"We will not hoodwink ourselves against such a fellow as this, that is
guilty of such notorious crimes. A man of modesty, after he hath been in
the pillory, would not look a man in the face. Such fellows as you are,
sirrah, shall know we are not afraid of you. It is notorious enough what a
fellow this is. I will shake all such fellows before I have done with
them." _Dangerfield._--"My lord, this is enough to discourage a man from
ever entering into an honest principle." _Scroggs, C. J._--"What! Do you,
with all the mischief that hell hath in you, think to have it in a court
of justice? I wonder at your impudence, that you dare look a court of
justice in the face, after having been made appear so notorious a villain.
Come, gentlemen of the jury, this is a plain case; here is but one witness
in a case of treason; therefore lay your heads together, and say _not
guilty_."
Mrs. Cellier was set at liberty, and Dangerfield was committed to occupy
her cell in Newgate.
When holding assizes in the country, he took every opportunity of
proclaiming his slavish doctrines. Going the Oxford circuit with Lord
Chief Baron Atkyns, he told the grand jury that a petition from the lord
mayor and citizens of London to the king, for calling a Parliament, was
high treason. Atkyns, on the contrary, affirmed "that the people might
petition the king, and, so that it was done without tumult, it was
lawful." Scroggs, having peremptorily denied this, went on to say "that
the king might prevent printing and publishing whatever he chose by
proclamation." Atkyns mildly remarked, "that such matters were fitter for
Parliament, and that, if the king could do this work of Parliament, we
were never like to have Parliaments any more." Scroggs, highly indignant,
sent off a despatch to the king, stating the unconstitutional and
treasonable language of Chief Baron Atkyns. This virtuous judge was in
consequence superseded, and remained in a private station till he was
reinstated in his office after the revolution.
Before Scroggs was himself prosecuted and dismissed from his office with
disgrace, he swelled the number of his delinquencies by an attack on the
liberty of the press, which was more violent than any that had ever been
attempted by the Star Chamber, and which, if it had been acquiesced in,
would have effectually established despotism in this country. Here he was
directly prompted by the government, and it is surprising that this
proceeding should so little have attracted the notice of historians who
have dwelt upon the arbitrary measures of the reign of Charles II. The
object was to put down all free discussions, and all complaints against
misrule, by having, in addition to a licenser, a process of _injunction_
against printing--to be summarily enforced, without the intervention of a
jury, by fine, imprisonment, pillory, and whipping. There was then in
extensive circulation a newspaper called "The Weekly Pacquet of Advice
from Rome, or the History of Papacy," which reflected severely upon the
religion now openly professed by the Duke of York and secretly embraced by
the king himself. In Trinity term, 1680, an application being made to the
Court of King's Bench, on the ground that this newspaper was libellous,
Scroggs, with the assent of his brother judges, granted a rule absolute in
the first instance, forbidding the publication of it in future. The editor
and printer being served with the rule, the journal was suppressed till
the matter was taken up in the House of Commons, and Scroggs was
impeached.
The same term he gave the crowning proof of his servility and contempt of
law and of decency. Shaftesbury, to pave the way for the exclusion bill,
resolved to prosecute the Duke of York as a "Popish recusant." The heir
presumptive to the throne was clearly liable to this proceeding and to all
the penalties, forfeitures, and disqualifications which it threatened, for
he had been educated a Protestant, and, having lately returned from
torturing the Covenanters in Scotland, he was in the habit of
ostentatiously celebrating the rites of the Romish religion in his chapel
in London. An indictment against him was prepared in due form, and this
was laid before the grand jury for the county of Middlesex by Lord
Shaftesbury, along with Lord Russell, Lord Cavendish, Lord Grey de Werke,
and other members of the country party. This alarming news being brought
to Scroggs while sitting on the bench, he instantly ordered the grand jury
to attend in court. The bailiff found them examining the first witness in
support of the indictment; but they obeyed orders. As soon as they had
entered the court, the chief justice said to them, "Gentlemen of the grand
jury, you are discharged, and the country is much obliged to you for your
services."
There were two classes whom he had offended, of very different character
and power--the witnesses in support of the Popish plot, and the
exclusionist leaders. The first began by preferring articles against him
to the king in council, which alleged, among other things, that at the
trial of Sir George Wakeman "he did browbeat and curb Dr. Titus Oates and
Captain Bedloe, two of the principal witnesses for the king, and encourage
the jury impanelled to try the malefactors to disbelieve the said
witnesses, by speaking of them slightingly and abusively, and by omitting
material parts of their evidence; that the said chief justice, to
manifest his slighting opinion of the evidence of the said Dr. Titus Oates
and Captain Bedloe in the presence of his most sacred majesty and the
lords of his majesty's most honorable Privy Council, did dare to say that
Dr. Titus Oates and Captain Bedloe always had an accusation ready against
any body; that the said lord chief justice is very much addicted to
swearing and cursing in his common discourse, and to drink to excess, to
the great disparagement of the dignity and gravity of his office."
It seems surprising that such charges, from such a quarter, against so
high a magistrate, should have been entertained, although he held his
office during the pleasure of the crown. The probability is that, being in
favor with the government, it was considered to be the most dexterous
course to give him the opportunity of being tried before a tribunal by
which he was sure of being acquitted, in the hope that his acquittal would
save him from the fangs of an enraged House of Commons.
He was required to put in an answer to the articles, and a day was
appointed for hearing the case. When it came on, to give great _éclat_ to
the certain triumph of the accused, the king presided in person. Oates and
Bedloe were heard, but they and their witnesses were constantly
interrupted and stopped, on the ground that they were stating what was not
evidence, or what was irrelevant; and, after a very eloquent and witty
speech from the chief justice, in the course of which he caused much
merriment by comments on his supposed immoralities, judgment was given
that the complaints against him were false and frivolous.
But Shaftesbury was not so easily to be diverted from his revenge. On the
meeting of Parliament he caused a motion to be made in the House of
Commons for an inquiry into the conduct of Lord Chief Justice Scroggs in
discharging the Middlesex grand jury and in other matters. A committee was
accordingly appointed, which presented a report recommending that he
should be impeached. The report was adopted by a large majority, and
articles of impeachment were voted against him. These were _eight_ in
number. The _first_ charged in general terms "that the said William
Scroggs, chief justice of the King's Bench, had traitorously and wickedly
endeavored to subvert the fundamental laws and the established religion
and government of the kingdom of England." The _second_ was for illegally
discharging the grand jury, "whereby the course of justice was stopped
maliciously and designedly--the presentments of many Papists and other
offenders were obstructed--and in particular a bill of indictment against
James, Duke of York, which was then before them, was prevented from being
proceeded upon." The _third_ was founded on the illegal order for
suppressing the Weekly Pacquet newspaper. The three following articles
were for granting general warrants, for imposing arbitrary fines, and for
illegally refusing bail. The _seventh_ charged him with defaming and
scandalizing the witnesses who proved the Popish plot. The _last_ was in
these words: "VIII. Whereas the said Sir William Scroggs, being advanced
to be chief justice of the Court of King's Bench, ought, by a sober,
grave, and virtuous conversation, to have given a good example to the
king's liege people, and to demean himself answerably to the dignity of so
eminent a station; yet, on the contrary thereof, he doth, by his frequent
and notorious excesses and debaucheries, and his profane and atheistical
discourses, daily affront Almighty God, dishonor his majesty, give
countenance and encouragement to all manner of vice and wickedness, and
bring the highest scandal on the public justice of the kingdom."
These articles were carried to the House of Peers by Lord Cavendish, who
there, in the name of all the Commons of England, impeached Chief Justice
Scroggs for "high treason, and other high crimes and misdemeanors."
The articles being read, the accused, who was present, sitting on the
judge's woolsack, was ordered to withdraw. A motion was then made, that he
be _committed_; but the previous question was moved and carried, and a
motion for an address to suspend him from his office till his trial should
be over, was got rid of in the same manner. He was then called in, and
ordered to find his bail in £10,000, to answer the articles of
impeachment, and to prepare for his trial.
Luckily for him, at the end of three days the Parliament was abruptly
dissolved. It would have been difficult to make out that any of the
charges amounted to _high treason_; but in those days men were not at all
nice about such distinctions, and a dangerous but convenient doctrine
prevailed, that, upon an impeachment, the two Houses of Parliament might
retrospectively declare any thing to be treason, according to their
discretion, and punish it capitally. At any rate, considering that the
influence of Shaftesbury in the Upper House was so great, and that Halifax
and the respectable anti-exclusionists could not have defended or
palliated the infamous conduct of Scroggs, had his case come to a hearing,
he could not have got off without some very severe and degrading
punishment.
Although he escaped a judicial sentence, his character was so blown upon,
and juries regarded him with such horror, and were so much inclined to go
against his direction, that the government found that he would obstruct
instead of facilitating their designs against the whig leaders, and that
it was necessary to get rid of him. After the dissolution of the Oxford
Parliament the court was completely triumphant, and, being possessed for a
time of absolute power, had only to consider the most expedient means of
perpetuating despotism, and wreaking vengeance on the friends of freedom.
Before long, Russell, Sydney, and Shaftesbury were to be brought to trial,
that their heads might pay the penalty of the Exclusion Bill; but if
Scroggs should be their judge, any jury, whether inclined to Protestantism
or to Popery, would probably acquit them.
Accordingly, in the beginning of April, to make room for one who, it was
hoped, would have more influence with juries, and make the proceedings
meditated against the city of London and other corporations pass off with
less discredit, while he might be equally subservient, Sir William Scroggs
was removed from his office of chief justice of the King's Bench. So low
had he fallen, that little regard was paid to his feelings, even by those
for whom he had sacrificed his character and his peace of mind; and,
instead of a "resignation on account of declining health," it was abruptly
announced to him that a _supersedeas_ had issued, and that Sir FRANCIS
PEMBERTON, who had been a puisne judge under him, was to succeed him as
chief justice.
His disgrace caused general joy in Westminster Hall, and over all England;
for, as Jeffreys had not yet been clothed in ermine, the name of Scroggs
was the by-word to express all that could be considered loathsome and
odious in a judge.
He was allowed a small pension, or retired allowance, which he did not
long enjoy. When cashiered, finding no sympathy from his own profession,
or from any class of the community, he retired to a country house which he
had purchased, called Wealde Hall, near Brentwood, in Essex. Even here,
his evil fame caused him to be shunned. He was considered by the gentry to
be without religion and without honor; while the peasantry, who had heard
some vague rumors of his having put people to death, believed that he was
a murderer, whispered stories of his having dealings with evil spirits,
and took special care never to run the risk of meeting him after dark. His
constitution was undermined by his dissolute habits; and, in old age, he
was still a solitary selfish bachelor. After languishing, in great misery,
till the 25th day of October, 1683, he then expired, without a relation or
friend to close his eyes. He was buried in the parish church of South
Wealde; the undertaker, the sexton, and the parson of the parish, alone
attending the funeral. He left no descendants; and he must either have
been the last of his race, or his collateral relations, ashamed of their
connection with him, had changed their name; for, since his death, there
has been no Scroggs in Great Britain or Ireland. The word was long used by
nurses to frighten children; and as long as our history is studied, or our
language is spoken or read, it will call up the image of a base and
bloody-minded villain. With honorable principles, and steady application,
he might have been respected in his lifetime, and left an historical
reputation behind him. "He was a person of very excellent and nimble
parts," and he could both speak and write our language better than any
lawyer of the seventeenth century, Francis Bacon alone excepted. He seems
to have been little aware of the light in which his judicial conduct would
be viewed; for it is a curious fact that the published reports of the
State Trials at which he presided were all revised and retouched by
himself; and his speeches, which fill us with amazement and horror, he
expected would be regarded as proofs of his spirit and his genius. He had
excellent natural abilities, and might have made a great figure in his
profession; but was profligate in his habits, brutal in his manners, with
only one rule to guide him--a regard to what he considered his own
interest--without a touch of humanity, wholly impenetrable to remorse.