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The attempted impeachment of Sir William Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice of the court of King's Bench, November 1680–March 1681

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Lois G. Schwoerer
Affiliation:
The George Washington University

Abstract

Generally dismissed by historians as just an hysterical gesture by parliamentary whig leaders disappointed and angered over the failure of the second Exclusion Bill, the attempted impeachment in 1680–1 of Sir William Scroggs was in fact a complicated and important affair. Although a failure in legal terms (because King Charles dissolved two parliaments), it succeeded in political terms when the king dismissed Scroggs. A propaganda ploy to embarrass the duke of York and also the king of England, re-unite the whig party, and re-ignite anti-popery fervour to promote another try at Exclusion (contrary to recent revisionism), the proceedings provoked discussion of many central issues, but most importantly of the legislative authority of parliament, or control of the law; the affair provoked a ‘crisis of authority’. Print culture played an unprecedented role: four of the eight articles of impeachment against Scroggs were connected with the press. Press people, in effect, brought down a chief minister of the crown and severely embarrassed the government, an event of signal importance in the history of the press.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 The attack on the judges was anticipated the week before, on 17 and 19 Nov.; on Scroggs as early as August 1679: Anchitell, Grey, Debates of the house of commons, from the year 1667 to the year 1694, 10 vols. (1763), VIII, 22, 35.Google Scholar

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69 Tresilian was hanged in 1388 partly for his cruel treatment of persons involved in the Wat Tyler rebellion. D.N.B.

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83 Haley, , The first earl of Shaftesbury, pp. 579–80Google Scholar. An anonymous pamphlet demeaning York in twenty-one particulars had prepared the way. See also a paper signed by whig leaders entitled ‘Reasons whereupon’ York may be ‘suspected’ of popery: PRO 30/24/6 B. 420.

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93 Quoted in D.N.B.

94 Possibly, Scroggs and the other justices were summoned to the privy council meeting to discuss the problem of the queen's involvement. Maybe Scroggs received some instruction from Sir Francis North, in a carriage on the way back to London from Hampton Court. See Havighurst, , ‘The judiciary and politics in the reign of Charles II’, p. 235 and n. 33Google Scholar; Kenyon, , ‘The acquittal of Sir George Wakeman’, p. 698.Google Scholar

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96 But news of the verdict was first reported in the 22 Jul. 1679 issue of Benjamin Harris's new newspaper, Domestick intelligence, or news both from city and country gth July 1679 to 13 Jan. 1680. Published to present false reports (1679), No. 5. In the 8 Aug. issue Harris insinuated that the jury had been bribed. ibid. No. 10.

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99 C.J., IX, 690.

100 Other printed tracts included: The tickler tickled: or The observator upon the late tryals of Sir George Wakeman, etc. observed: by Margery Mason spinster (1679). Justice in masquerade, a poem (n.d. [1680]). And The bellowings of a wild-bull: or, Scroggs's roaring lamentation for being impeached of high-treason (n.p., n.d. [1681]). Two unpublished lampoons, similar in nature, are in B.L., Add. MS 34362, fos. 95, 95b; a third is in the Pepys papers at Magdalene College, 2881/89.

101 On circuit in the fall of 1679 Scroggs suffered terrible indignities, incuding having a half-dead dog tossed into his carriage and his sleep disturbed as he was driven along by a man rapping on the top of his coach and calling out ‘A Wakeman, A Wakeman’. Luttrell, , Brief relation, I, 1920Google Scholar. Memoirs of the Verney family during the seventeenth century compiled from the papers and illustrated by the portraits at Claydon House by Frances Parthenope Verney and Margaret M. Verney, 2nd edn (London, 2 vols., 1907), II, 321.Google Scholar

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104 Scroggs his speech in the Kings-Bench.

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111 C.J., IX, 688–9.

112 Statutes of the realm, vol. V (1819), 31 Car. II, c.2.

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121 Domestick intelligence, No. 65.

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123 St. Tr., 7: 1112–30; Folger Shakespeare Library (hereafter FSL), ‘The Newdigate newsletters, addressed to Sir Richard Newdigate, 1st Bart., and to 2nd Bart, 1673–1715,’ L.c. 998. Care, Weekly pacquet, no. 3, preface.

124 F.S.L., ‘Newdigate newsletters’, I Sept. 1679, L.c. 829, reporting the rumour.

125 Articles of high misdemeanours, humbly offered and presented to the consideration of his most sacred Majesty, and his most Honourable privy councel, against Sir William Scrogs [sic]… together with his Lordships answer thereunto (n.p., n.d. [1680]). This appeared in three editions, suggesting interest in and propaganda value of this episode.

126 Innocence unveil'd: or, a poem on the acquittal of the lord chief justice Scroggs (n.p., n.d. [post Jan. 1680]).

127 Bodl., MS Carte 39, Ormonde correspondence, p. 113. PRO, PC 2/58, pp. 355, 359; C.S.P.D., 1679–80, p. 376 [PRO, ADM 77, Greenwich Hospital newsletters, no. 42]. John, Warner, The history of English persecution of catholics and the presbyterian plot, ed. by Birrell, T. A., 2 vols. (Catholic Record Society, 19531954), I, 157 [318].Google Scholar

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129 D.N.B.

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138 C.J., IX, 687.

139 See above, note 29.