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 Trinty 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 [JUNE 16.] 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."

It would have been consolatary to us, in reading an account of the base actions of Scroggs, if we could have looked forward to his suffering on a scaffold like Tresilian, or dying ignominiously in the Tower of London like Jeffreys. He escaped the full measure of retribution which he deserved, but he did not go unpunished.

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 brow-beat and curb Dr. Titus Oates and Captain Bedloe, two of the principal witnesses for the King, and encourage the jury impannelled 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.

1 "Die Mecrcurii proxima post tres septimanas Sanctæ Trinitatis Anno 32 Car. II. Regis, Ordinatum est quod Liber intitulat. The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, or the History of Popery, non ulterius imprimatur vel publicetur per aliquam personam quamcunque. Per CUR."-8 St. Tr. 198.

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 dextrous 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 greater eclat 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 compiaints 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 [Nov. 23.] 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

[DEC. 23.] 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 vir

tuous conversation, to have given a good example to the King's liege people, and to demean himself answerable 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.'

[JAN. 7, 1681.]

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 10,0007., 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 anything 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 des- [A. D. 1861.] potism, 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 Weald 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 [A. D. 1683.] 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 17th 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. Thank Heaven, we have no such

J Wood.

2 One of the charges against him was, that he made a traffic in selling to booksellers the exclusive right of publishing trials before him. It was said he bargained to receive 150 guineas for the Report of Sir George Wakeman's trial, and 100 guineas more if it was not finished in one day.

men in our generation: it is better for us to contemplate dull, moral mediocrity, than profligate eccentricity, however brilliant it may be.1

Scroggs may be considered as having been of some use to his country, by making the character of a wicked judge so frightfully repulsive that he may have deterred many from giving way to his bad propensities.Dean Swift says, "I have read somewhere of an Eastern king who put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence, and ordered his hide to be stuffed into a cushion, and placed upon the tribunal for the son to sit on, who was preferred to his father's office. I fancy such a memorial might not have been unuseful to a son of Sir William Scroggs; and that both he and his successors would often wriggle in their seats as long as the cushion lasted."

CHAPTER XX.

LIFE OF LORD CHIEF JUSTICE PEMBERTON.

THE career of our next Chief Justice is more chequered by extraordinary vicissitudes than that of any legal dignitary mentioned in the annals of Westminster Hall. While yet a youth, he had wasted his substance by riotous living, and incurred enormous debts. Without education, without character, without friends, a slave to the worst propensities and habits, he was deprived of his liberty and became the associate of the most profligate of mankind. As the law then stood, there were no means of ever obtaining his liberation without satisfying the demands of his creditors, and there seemed a certainty that he must sink deeper and deeper in misery and in depravity till he expired in his cell. But a prison served him for a school, for a university, and for an inn of court. Here he became an elegant scholar, a profound lawyer, and qualified to run the race of honorable rivalry with those who had taken full advantage of regular tuition and training. By his own exertions, while still a prisoner, he not only maintained himself creditably, but made an arrangement for the discharge of all his pecuniary engagements. Starting at the bar, though he was at first taunted as a "gaolbird," he was soon run after as a distinguished advocate; and he attained the highest honors of his profession. When he was placed on the bench and it might have been thought that his adventures were at an end, the remarkable strokes of adverse and auspicious fortune to which he was destined were only beginning. Thrice he was removed from high judicial situations, which he filled with credit, by the rude hand of arbitrary power. Again and again he recommenced pleading causes for clients in the courts in which he had presided. After trying Lord Russell, he was

1 See 8 St. Tr. 163–224.

2 Drapier's Letters, No. V. See 2. Shower, 155.; 1 Ventris, 329. 354.; Macph. State Papers, i. 106.

VOL. II.-3.