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.