The matter assuming this serious aspect, he petitioned to be heard at the bar of the House in his own defence. Lord Chief Baron Atkyns, who was then present, says, “he did it with that great humility and reverence, that those of his own profession and others were so far his advocates that the House desisted from any farther prosecution.” His demeanor seems now to have been as abject as it had before been insolent, and he escaped punishment only by the generous intercession of lawyers whom he had been in the habit of browbeating in the King’s Bench.
He was abundantly tame for the rest of his days; but he fell into utter contempt, and the business of the court was done by Twisden, a very learned judge, and much respected, although very passionate. Kelynge’s collar of S. S. ceased to have any charms for him; he drooped and languished for some terms, and on the 9th of May, 1671, he expired, to the great relief of all who had any regard for the due administration of justice. No interest can be felt respecting the place of his interment, his marriages, or his descendants.
I ought to mention, among his other vanities, that he had the ambition to be an author; and he compiled a folio volume of decisions in criminal cases, which are of no value whatever except to make us laugh at some of the silly egotisms with which they abound.[76]
CHAPTER XII.
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.”