ROBERT HYDE.
On the death of Sir Robert Foster, Lord Clarendon thought that he might fairly do a job for an aged kinsman, of respectable, if not brilliant reputation; and he appointed Sir Robert Hyde chief justice of the King’s Bench. They were cousins-german, being grandsons of Lawrence Hyde, of West Hatch, in the county of Wilts, and nephews of Sir Nicholas Hyde, chief justice of the King’s Bench in the commencement of the reign of Charles I. The Hydes were the most distinguished race of the robe in the 17th century. Robert’s father was likewise a lawyer of renown, being attorney general to Anne of Denmark, queen of James I., and he had twelve sons, most of whom followed their father’s profession. Robert seems to have been a very quiet man, and to have got on by family interest and by plodding. Although Edward, the future chancellor, played such a distinguished part during the troubles,—first as a moderate patriot, and then as a liberal conservative,—Robert, the future chief justice, was not in the House of Commons, nor did he enlist under the banner of either party in the field. Just before the civil war broke out, he was called to the degree of serjeant at law, and he continued obscurely to carry on his profession during all the vicissitudes of the twenty eventful years between 1640 and 1660.
At the Restoration, he was made a puisne judge of the Common Pleas, and, acting under Chief Justice Bridgman, he acquitted himself creditably.
When he was installed chief justice of the King’s Bench, Lord Chancellor Clarendon himself attended in court, and thus addressed him:—
“It’s a sign the troubles have been long, that there are so few judges left, only yourself; and after so long suffering of the law and lawyers, the king thought fit to call men of the best reputation and learning, to renew the reverence due and used to the law and lawyers; and the king, as soon as the late chief justice was dead, full of days and of honors, did resolve on you as the ancientest judge left; and your education in this court gives you advantage here above others, as you are the son of an eminent lawyer as any in his days, whose felicity was to see twelve sons, and you one of the youngest a serjeant, and who left you enough, able to live without the help of an elder brother. For your integrity to the crown, you come to sit here. The king and the kingdom do expect great reformation from your activity. For this reason, the king, when I told him Chief Justice Foster was dead, made choice of you. Courage in a judge is necessary as in a general;[63]therefore you must not want this to punish sturdy offenders. The genteel wickedness of duelling I beseech you inquire into; the carriers of challenges, and fighters, however they escape death, the fining and imprisoning of them will make them more dread this court than the day of judgment.”
Hyde, C. J.—“I had ever thought of the advice of the wise man, ‘not to seek to be a judge, nor ask to sit in the seatof honor,’ being conscious of my own defects and small learning. But, seeing his majesty’s grace, I shall humbly submit, and serve him with my life, with all alacrity and duty. Sins of infirmity I hope his majesty will pardon, and for wilful and corrupt dealings I shall not ask it. I attended in Coke’s time as a reporter here; and as he said when he was made chief justice I say now—‘I will behave myself with all diligence and honesty.’”
This chief justice was much celebrated in his day for checking the licentiousness of the press. A printer named John Twyn, having printed a book containing passages which were said to reflect upon the king, was arraigned before him at the Old Bailey on an indictment for high treason. The prisoner being asked how he would be tried, said, “I desire to be tried in the presence of that God who is the searcher of all hearts, and the disposer of all things.”
Hyde, L. C. J.—“God Almighty is present here, but you must be tried by him and your peers, that is, your country, or twelve honest men.”Prisoner.—“I desire to be tried by God alone.”Hyde, L. C. J.—“God Almighty looks down, and beholds what we do here, and we shall answer severely if we do you any wrong. We are careful of our souls as you can be of yours. You must answer in the words of the law.”Prisoner.—“By God and my country.”
It was proved clearly enough that he had printed the book, and some passages of it might have been considered libellous; but there was no other evidence against him, and he averred that he had unconsciously printed the book in the way of his trade.
Hyde, L. C. J.—“There is here as much villany and slander as it is possible for devil or man to invent. To rob theking of the love of his subjects, is to destroy him in his person. You are here in the presence of Almighty God, as you desired; and the best you can now do towards amends for your wickedness is by discovering the author of this villanous book. If not, you must not expect—and, indeed, God forbid—there should be any mercy shown you.”Prisoner.—“I never knew the author of it.”Hyde, L. C. J.—“Then we must not trouble ourselves. You of the jury, there can be no doubt that publishing such a book as this is as high treason as can be committed, and my brothers will declare the same if you doubt.”
The jury having found a verdict of guilty,[64]the usual sentence was pronounced by Lord Chief Justice Hyde, and the printer was drawn, hanged, and quartered accordingly.
The next trials before his lordship, although the charge was not made capital, (as he said it might have been,) were equally discreditable to him. Several booksellers were indicted for publishing a book which contained a simple and true account of the trial of the regicides, with their speeches and prayers.
Hyde, L. C. J.—“To publish such a book is to fill all the king’s subjects with the justification of that horrid murder. I will be bold to say no such horrid villany has been done upon the face of the earth since the crucifying of our Savior. To print and publish this is sedition. He that prints a libel against me as Sir Robert Hyde, and he that sets him at work,must answer it; much more when against the king and the state.Dying men’s words, indeed. If men are as villanous at their death as in their lives, may what they say be published as the words of dying men? God forbid! It is the king’s great mercy that the charge is not for high treason.”
The defendants, being found guilty, were sentenced to be fined, to stand several hours in the pillory, and to be imprisoned for life.
[In October, 1664, Chief Justice Hyde caused John Keach to be indicted for libel, which indictment he proceeded forthwith to try, in a manner denounced by Mr. Dunning, in one of his speeches in the House of Commons (Dec. 6, 1770,) as “cruel, brutal, and illegal.”
Keach had written a little book called The Child’s Instructor; or a new and easy Primer, in which were contained several things contrary to the doctrine and ceremonies of the Church of England. Keach taught that infants ought not to be baptized; that laymen may preach the gospel; that Christ shall reign personally on the earth in the latter day, &c. He had no sooner received a few copies from London, where the book was printed, than a justice of the peace, who had heard of it, entered his house with a constable, seized several of the books, and bound Keach over to answer for it at the next assizes at Aylsbury.
Chief Justice Hyde presiding, Keach was called to the bar, when the following dialogue ensued:—
Hyde.—Did you write this book? (Holding out one of the primers.)[65]
Keach.—I writ most of it.
Hyde.—What have you to do to take other men’s trades out of their hands? I believe you can preach as well as write books. Thus it is to let you and such as you are have the Scripture to wrest to your own destruction. You have made in your book a new creed. I have seen three creeds before, but I never saw a fourth till you made one.
Keach.—I have not made a creed, but a confession of the Christian faith.
Hyde.—Well, that is a creed, then.
Keach.—Your lordship said you had never seen but three creeds, but thousands of Christians have made a confession of their faith.
The chief justice having denounced several things contained in the book as contrary to the liturgy of the church of England, and so a breach of the test of uniformity—
Keach.—My lord, as to those things—
Hyde.—You shall not preach here, nor give the reasons of your damnable doctrine, to seduce and infect his majesty’s subjects. These are not things for such as you to meddle with, and to pretend to write books of divinity; but I will try you for it before I sleep.
He then directed an indictment to be drawn up, and thus addressed the grand jury:—
“Gentlemen of the grand jury: I shall send you presently a bill against one that hath taken upon him to write a new primer for the instruction of your children. He is a base and dangerous fellow; and if this be suffered, children by learning of it will become such as he is; and therefore I hope you will do your duty.”
A long indictment having been found, in which diverspassages from the book were set forth as damnable, seditious, wicked, and contrary to the statute in that case made and provided, Keach was called upon to plead to it. He asked for a copy, and liberty to confer with counsel, and to put in his exceptions before pleading. But Chief Justice Hyde compelled him to plead before he would give him a copy, and then would allow him only an hour’s time to consider it, which, as not long enough to be of any benefit, Keach declined to accept.
The evidence was, that thirty copies of the book had been seized at Keach’s house by the justice and constable, and that Keach on his examination before the justice had confessed himself the author, and that he had received from London about forty copies, of which he had dispersed about twelve. Hyde then caused the passages contained in the indictment to be read, remarking on each to show that it was contrary to the Book of Common Prayer. This done, the prisoner began to speak in his defence.
Keach.—As to the doctrines—
Hyde.—You shall not speak here except to the matter of fact; that is to say, whether you writ this book or not.[66]
Keach.—I desire liberty to speak to the particulars of my indictment, and those things that have—
Hyde.—You shall not be suffered to give the reasons for your damnable doctrine here to seduce the king’s subjects.
Keach.—Is my religion so bad that I may not be allowed to speak?
Hyde.—I know your religion; you are a Fifth Monarchy man; and you can preach as well as write books; and youwould preach here if I would let you; but I shall take such order as you shall do no more mischief.[67]
After some altercation between the judge and the prisoner as to the facts and the evidence, Hyde summed up and charged the jury; but after an absence of several hours one of the officers came in with a message that they could not agree.
Hyde.—But they must agree.
Officer.—They desire to know whether one of them may not come and speak to your lordship about something whereof they are in doubt.
Hyde.—Yes, privately; (and then ordered one to come to him on the bench.)
The officer then called one, and he was set upon the clerk’s table, and the judge and he whispered together a great while. It was observed that the judge, having his hands upon his shoulders, would frequently shake him as he spoke to him. Upon this person’s returning, the whole jury soon came in, and by their foreman delivered a verdict of guilty in part.
Clerk.—Of what part?
Foreman.—There is something contained in the indictment which is not in the book.
Clerk.—What is that?
Foreman.—In the indictment he is charged with these words: “When the thousand years shall be expired, then shall all the rest of the church be raised;” but in the book it is, “Then shall the rest of the dead be raised.”
Clerk.—Is he guilty of all the rest of the indictment, that sentence excepted?
One of the Jury.—I cannot in conscience find him guilty, because the words in the indictment and the book do not agree.
Hyde.—That is only through a mistake of the clerk’s, and in that sentence only; and you may find him guilty of all, that sentence excepted; but why did you come in before you were agreed?
Foreman.—We thought we had been agreed.
Hyde.—You must go out again and agree; and as for you that say you cannot in conscience find him guilty, if you say so again, without giving reasons for it, Ishall take an order with you.[68]
We shall find an explanation of this last threat (which soon produced a verdict in accordance with the wishes of the chief justice) in Hale’s Pleas of the Crown,[69]where it is stated that while Hyde was acting as a judge ofnisi prius, he introduced the illegal practice of fining juries for not rendering verdicts satisfactory to him. “I have seen,” says Hale, “arbitrary practice still go from one thing to another. The fines set upon grand inquests began; then they set fines upon the petit jurors for not finding according to the direction of the court; then afterwards the judges ofnisi priusproceeded to fine jurors in civil causes if they gave not a verdict according to direction, even in points of fact. This was done by a judge of assize [Justice Hyde, at Oxford, Vaugh. 145] in Oxfordshire, and the fine estreated; but I, by advice of most of the judges of England, stayed process upon that fine. [Hale was at this time chief baron of the Court of Exchequer.] The like was done by the same judge in a case ofburglary. The fine was estreated into the exchequer; but by the like advice I stayed process; and in the case of Wagstaff, [Vaugh. 153,] and other jurors fined at the Old Bayley for giving a verdict contrary to direction, by advice of all the judges of England, (only one dissenting,) it was ruled to be against law.”][70]
In the fervor of loyalty which still prevailed, such doctrines were by no means unpopular; and while Chief Justice Hyde was cried up as an eminent judge by the triumphant Cavaliers, the dejected Roundheads hardly ventured to whisper a complaint against him. To the great grief of the one party, and, no doubt, to the secret joy of the other, who interpreted his fate as a judgment, his career was suddenly cut short. On the 1st of May, 1665, as he was placing himself on the bench to try a dissenter who had published a book recommending the “comprehension,” that had been promised by the King’s Declaration from Breda, while apparently in the enjoyment of perfect health, he dropped down dead.
JOHN KELYNGE.
After the sudden death of Sir Robert Hyde, Lord Chancellor Clarendon was again thrown into distress by the difficulty of filling up the office of chief justice of the King’s Bench, and he allowed it to remain vacant seven months. Only five years had elapsed since the Restoration, and no loyal lawyer of eminence had sprung up. At last the Chancellor thought he could not do better than promote Sir John Kelynge, then apuisne, to be the head of the court. The appointment was considered a very bad one; and some accounted for it by supposing that a liberal contribution had been made towards the expense of erecting “Dunkirk House,”[71]which was exciting the admiration and envy of the town; while others asserted that the collar of S. S.[72]had been put around the neck of the new legal dignitary by the Duchess of Cleveland. I believe that judicial patronage had not yet been drawn into the vortex of venality, and that Clarendon, left to the freedom of his own will, preferred him whom he considered the least ineligible candidate. But wecannot wonder at the suspicions which were generally entertained, for Sir John Kelynge’s friends could only say in his favor that he was a “violent Cavalier,” and his enemies observed that “however fit he might have been tochargethe Roundheads under Prince Rupert, he was very unfit tochargea jury in Westminster Hall.”
I can find nothing of his origin, or of his career, prior to the Restoration; and I am unable to say whether, like some loyal lawyers, he actually had carried arms for the king, or, like others, had continued obscurely to practise his profession in London. The first notice I find of him is by himself, in the account which he has left us of the conferences of the judges at Serjeants’ Inn, preparatory to the trial of the regicides, when he says he attended that service as junior counsel for the crown. He might have been employed from a notion that he would be useful in solving the knotty points likely to arise,[73]or, (what is quite as likely,) without any professional reputation, he might have got a brief by favor, in a case which was to draw the eyes of the whole world upon all engaged in it.
When the trials came on, he was very busy and bustling, and eagerly improved every opportunity of bringing himself forward. Before they were over, he took upon himself the degree of serjeant at law, and, to his unspeakable delight, he was actually intrusted with the task of conducting theprosecution against Colonel Hacker, who had commanded the guard during the king’s trial and at his execution. He learnedly expounded to the jury that the treason consisted in “compassing and imagining the king’s death,” and that the overt acts charged ofcondemning himandexecuting himwere only to be considered evidence of the evil intention. He then stated the facts which would be proved by the witnesses, and concluded by observing,—
“Thus did he keep the king a prisoner, to bring him before that Mock Court of Injustice; and was so highly trusted by all those miscreants who thirsted for the king’s blood, that the bloody warrant was directed to him to see execution done. Nay, gentlemen, he was on the scaffold, and had the axe in his hand.”Hacker.—“My lords, to save your lordships trouble, I confess that I was upon the guard, and had a warrant to keep the king for his execution.” (The original warrant being shown to him, he admitted it.)Kelynge.—“After you had that warrant brought to you, did you, by virtue of it, direct another warrant for the execution of the king, and take his sacred majesty’s person from the custody of Colonel Tomlinson?”Hacker.—“No, sir.”Kelynge.—“We shall prove it.”
Colonel Tomlinson was then examined, and detailed the circumstances of the execution, showing that Colonel Hacker had conducted the king to the scaffold under the original warrant—what had been taken for a fresh warrant being a letter written by him to Cromwell, then engaged in prayer for the king’s deliverance with General Fairfax.
Kelynge.—“We have other witnesses, but the prisoner hath confessed enough. We have proved that he had the king in custody, and that at the time of the execution he wasthere to manage it. What do you say for yourself?”Hacker.—“Truly, my lord, I have no more to say for myself but that I was a soldier and under command. In obedience to those set over me I did act. My desire hath ever been for the welfare of my country.”L. C. Baron.—“This is all you have to say for yourself?”Hacker.—“Yes, my lord.”L. C. Baron.—“Then, Colonel Hacker, for that which you say for yourself that you did it by command, you must understand that no power on earth could authorize such a thing. Either he is guilty of compassing the death of the king, or no man can be said to be guilty.”
Of course he was convicted and executed.
Serjeant Kelynge was soon after promoted to be a king’s serjeant; and in that capacity took a prominent part in the trial of Sir Henry Vane, who, not being concerned in the late king’s death, was tried for what he had subsequently done in obedience to the Parliament, then possessed of the supreme power of the state. To the plea that his acts could not be said to be against the peace of Charles II., who was then in exile, Kelynge admitted that if another sovereign, although a usurper, had mounted the throne, the defence would have been sufficient; but urged that the throne must always be full, and that Charles II., in legal contemplation, occupied it whilede factohe was wandering in foreign lands, and ambassadors from all the states of Europe were accredited to Oliver, the Lord Protector.
Kelynge having suggested this reasoning, which was adopted by the court, and on which Vane was executed as a traitor, he was, on the next vacancy, made a puisne judge of the King’s Bench.
While Kelynge was a puisne judge, he made up, by loyalzeal and subserviency, for his want of learning and sound sense; but, from a knowledge of his incompetency, there was a great reluctance to promote him on the death of Lord Chief Justice Hyde. Sir Matthew Hale was pointed out as the fittest person to be placed at the head of the common law; but Lord Clarendon had not the liberality to raise to the highest dignity one who had sworn allegiance to the Protector, and there being no better man whom he could select, who was free from the suspicion of republican taint, he fixed upon the “violent Cavalier.”
Luckily there were no speeches at his installation. On account of the dreadful plague which was then depopulating London, the courts were adjourned to Oxford. “There Kelynge, puisne judge, was made chief justice, and being sworn at the chancellor’s lodging, came up privily and took his place in the logic school, where the Court of King’s Bench sat. The business was only motions—to prevent any concourse of people. In London died the week before, 7165 of the plague, besides Papists and Quakers.”
The new chief justice even exceeded public expectation by the violent, fantastical, and ludicrous manner in which he comported himself. His vicious and foolish propensities broke out without any restraint, and, at a time when there was little disposition to question any who were clothed with authority, he drew down upon himself the contempt of the public and the censure of Parliament.
He was unspeakably proud of the collar which he wore as chief justice, this alone distinguishing him externally from the puisnies, a class on whom he now looked down very haughtily. In his own report of the resolutions of the judges prior to the trial of Lord Morley for murder, beforethe House of Lords, he considers the following as most important,—
“We did all,una voce, resolve that we were to attend at the trial in our scarlet robes, and the chief judges in their collars of S. S.—which I did accordingly.”
There having been a tumult in an attempt by some apprentices to put down certain disorderly houses in Moorfields, which were a great nuisance to the neighborhood, and cries that no such houses should be tolerated, Chief Justice Kelynge, considering this “anaccroachmentof royal authority,” directed those concerned in it to be indicted forHIGH TREASON; and the trial coming on before him at the Old Bailey, he thus laid down the law to the jury,—
“The prisoners are indicted for levying war against the king. By levying war is not only meant when a body is gathered together as in army, but if a company of people will go about any public reformation, this is high treason. These people do pretend their design was against brothels; now, for men to go about to pull down brothels, with a captain, and an ensign, and weapons,—if this thing be endured,who is safe? It is high treason because it doth betray the peace of the nation, and every subject is as much wronged as the king; for if every man may reform what he will, no man is safe; therefore the thing is of desperate consequence, and we must make this for a public example. There is reason we should be very cautious; we are but newly delivered from rebellion, and we know that that rebellion first began under the pretence of religion and the law; for the devil hath always this vizard upon it. We have great reason to be very wary that we fall not again into the same error. Apprentices in future shall not go on in this manner. It is proved that Beasely went astheir captain with his sword, and flourished it over his head, and that Messenger walked about Moorfields with a green apron on the top of a pole. What was done by one was done by all; in high treason, all concerned are principals.”
So the prisoners were all convicted of high treason; and I am ashamed to say that all the judges concurred in the propriety of the conviction except Lord Chief Baron Hale, who, as might be expected, delivered his opinion that there was no treason in the case, and treated it merely as a misdemeanor. Such a proceeding had not the palliation that it ruined a personal enemy, or crushed a rival party in the state, or brought great forfeitures into the exchequer; it was a mere fantastic trick played before high heaven to make the angels weep.[74]
When Chief Justice Kelynge was upon the circuit, being without any check or restraint, he threw aside all regard to moderation and to decency. He compelled the grand jury of Somersetshire to find a true bill contrary to their consciences—reproaching Sir Hugh Wyndham, the foreman, as the head of a faction, and telling them “that they were all his servants, and that he would make the best in England stoop.”
Some persons were indicted before him for attending a conventicle; and, although it was proved that they had assembled on the Lord’s day with Bibles in their hands,without Prayer Books, they were acquitted. He thereupon fined the jury one hundred marks apiece, and imprisoned them till the fines were paid. Again, on the trial of a man for murder, who was suspected of being a dissenter, and whom he had a great desire to hang, he fined and imprisoned all the jurybecause, contrary to his direction, they brought in a verdict ofmanslaughter.[75]Upon another occasion, (repeating a coarse jest of one whom he professed to hold in great abhorrence,) when he was committing a man in a very arbitrary manner, the famous declaration in Magna Charta being cited to him, that “no freeman shall be imprisoned except by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land,” the only answer given by my lord chief justice of England was to repeat, with a loud voice, Cromwell’s rhyme, “Magna Charta—Magna F——a!!!”
At last, the scandal was so great that complaints against him were brought by petition before the House of Commons, and were referred to the grand committee of justice. After witnesses had been examined, and he himself had been heard in his defence, the committee reported the following resolutions:—
“1. That the proceedings of the lord chief justice in the cases referred to us are innovations in the trial of men for their lives and liberties, and that he hath used an arbitrary and illegal power which is of dangerous consequence to the lives and liberties of the people of England.
“2. That in the place of judicature, the lord chief justice hath undervalued, vilified, and condemned Magna Charta, the great preserver of our lives, freedom, and property.
“3. That the lord chief justice be brought to trial, in order to condign punishment in such manner as the House shall judge most fit and requisite.”
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]
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, ofkeen 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.”
Mr. Justice Scroggs gave himself little trouble with law business that came before the court; but, in addressing grand juries on the circuit, he was loud and eloquent against the proceedings of the “country party,” and he still continued to be frequently in the circle at Whitehall, where he took opportunities not only to celebrate his own zeal, but to sneerat Sir John Raynsford, the chief justice of the King’s Bench, whose place he was desirous to fill. Chiffinch, and his other patrons of the back-stairs, were in the habit of sounding his praise, and asserting that he was the only man who, as head of the King’s Bench, could effectually cope with the manœuvres of Shaftesbury. This unconquerable intriguer, having been discharged from custody, was again plotting against the government, was preparing to set up the legitimacy of Monmouth, and was asserting that the Duke of York should be set aside from the succession of the throne and prosecuted as a Popish recusant.
The immediate cause of Raynsford’s removal was the desire of the government to have a chief justice of the King’s Bench on whose vigor and subserviency reliance could be placed, to counteract the apprehended machinations of Shaftesbury.
On the 31st of May, 1678, Sir William Scroggs was sworn into the office, and he remained in it for a period of three years. How he conducted himself in civil suits is never once mentioned, for the attention of mankind was entirely absorbed by his scandalous misbehavior as a criminal judge. He is looked to with more loathing, if not with more indignation, than Jeffreys, for in his abominable cruelties he was the sordid tool of others, and in his subsequent career he had not the feeble excuse of gratifying his own passions or advancing his own interests.
Although quite indifferent with regard to religion, and ready to have declared himself a Papist, or a Puritan, or a Mahometan, according to the prompting of his superiors, finding that the policy of the government was to outbid Shaftesbury in zeal for Protestantism, he professed an implicit belief in all the wonders revealed by Titus Oates, in the murder of SirEdmondbury Godfrey by Papists, and in the absolute necessity for cutting off without pity all those who were engaged in the nefarious design to assassinate the king, to burn London, and to extinguish the flames with the blood of Protestants. He thought himself to be in the singularly felicitous situation of pleasing the government while he received shouts of applause from the mob. Burnet, speaking of his appointment, says, “It was a melancholy thing to see so bad, so ignorant, and so poor a man raised up to that great post. Yet he, now seeing how the stream ran, went into it with so much zeal and heartiness that he was become the favorite of the people.”[78]
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 ofguiltybeing 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;[79]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 anIMPRIMATUR, 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, withtemper 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 priestsescape, 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 footmanhath 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 inopen 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 tomeet 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. Thoseare 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 saynot 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 kingcould 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 ofinjunctionagainst 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 partsof 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 greatéclatto 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 hisrevenge. 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 wereeightin number. Thefirstcharged 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.” Thesecondwas 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.” Thethirdwas 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. Theseventhcharged him with defaming and scandalizing the witnesses who proved the Popish plot. Thelastwas 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 atheisticaldiscourses, 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 becommitted; 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 tohigh 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, andwere 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 asupersedeashad issued, and that SirFrancis 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, whichhe 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 curiousfact 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.