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.