Atrocious Judges : Lives of Judges Infamous as Tools of Tyrants and Instruments of Oppression

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;78 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,79 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,80it 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.81Do 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.