private nor his public character will bear much examination. He possessed little reputation as a lawyer, but he was a fluent speaker, and had ‘many good turns of thought and language.’ Indeed, he could both speak and write better than most of the lawyers of the seventeenth century, ‘but he could not avoid extremities; if he did ill it was extremely so, and if well in extreme also’ (North, Examen, 1740, p. 568). His behaviour on the bench compares unfavourably even with that of Jeffreys. He frequently acted the part of a prosecutor rather than that of a judge. His summing up in some of the ‘popish plot’ cases can only be described as infamous. In fine, he was undoubtedly one of the worst judges that ever disgraced the English bench. But it should be remembered in passing judgment on his character that his faults and vices were shared in a greater or less degree by most of his contemporaries. Violent as his conduct appears to us, Scroggs can hardly be said to have strained the law as it then stood in any of the ‘popish plot’ trials, excepting perhaps in the cases of Whitebread and Fenwick. And though his motives may not have been disinterested, some little credit is due to him for the courage which he showed in the face of an angry mob in helping to expose the machinations of Oates, Bedloe, and Dangerfield. His colleagues in the king's bench, who shared with him the responsibility of these trials, were for the most part passive instruments in his hands. Sir Robert Atkyns [q. v.], however, who ‘was willing to avoid all occasion of discoursing with Scroggs,’ had several differences of opinion with him, and on one occasion Scroggs reported him to Charles II because he presumed to say that ‘the people might petition to the king, so that it was done without tumult it was lawful’ (Parl. Hist. v. 308–9).
The reports of the thirteen state trials at which Scroggs presided were revised by himself, and he appears to have made considerable sums of money by selling to booksellers the exclusive right of publishing them. Some of his judgments in the civil cases which came before him will be found in the second volume of Shower's ‘Reports of Cases adjudged in the Court of King's Bench,’ 1794, pp. 1–159. Several of his letters are preserved in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 28053 f. 114, 29549 ff. 62, 64, 68–75). His ‘Practice of Courts-Leet and Courts-Baron’ was published after his death, London, 1701, 12mo; 2nd edit. London, 1702, 12mo; 3rd edit. London, 1714, 8vo; 4th edit. London, 1728, 8vo. Sir Walter Scott introduces Scroggs into ‘Peveril of the Peak’ (chap. xli.), and Swift refers to him in No. 5 of the ‘Drapier's Letters’ (Swift, Works, 1814, vii. 236–7).
Sir William Scroggs (1652?–1695), only son of the above, was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a chorister. He matriculated at the age of seventeen on 26 March 1669, and graduated B.A. in 1673. He was admitted a member of Gray's Inn on 2 Feb. 1770, was called to the bar on 27 Oct. 1676, appointed a king's counsel in April 1681, and elected a bencher of his inn in May following. He was knighted at Whitehall on 16 Jan. 1681, and on 17 June following he presented an address to the king from some of the members of Gray's Inn, thanking him for dissolving parliament. He served as treasurer of his inn from November 1687 to November 1688. He married, first, in 1684, Mary, daughter of Sir John Churchill, master of the rolls, who died without leaving children; and secondly, in 1685, Anne, daughter of Matthew Bluck of Hunsdon House, Hertfordshire, by whom he had issue. Scroggs died in 1695, leaving his widow executrix of his will (Lutwyche, Reports, 1704, ii. 1510). She died on 23 April 1746, aged 81, and was buried at Chute in Wiltshire. His name appears more than once as counsel in the seventh volume of Cobbett's ‘State Trials.’
[Authorities quoted in the text; Burnet's Hist. of his own Time, 1833, i. 190–1, 227–8, 255–85; Wood's Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc. Publ. No. xxi.), ii. 465, 506, 515, 537; Foss's Judges of England, 1864, vii. 164–71; Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, 1858, ii. 4–23; Woolrych's Memoirs of the Life of Judge Jeffreys, 1827, pp. 51–5, 316–17; Lingard's Hist. of England, 1855, ix. 172–92, 216–28; Sir J. F. Stephen's Hist. of the Criminal Law in England, 1883, i. 383–404, ii. 310–13; Pike's Hist. of Crime in England, 1873–6, ii. 216–17, 218–29; Morant's Hist. of Essex, 1766, i. (Hundred of Chafford) 119; Wright's Hist. of the County of Essex, 1836, ii. 534; Cussans's Hist. of Hertfordshire, i. (Hundred of Edwinstree) 162–3, (Hundred of Braughin) p. 44; Bloxam's Magdalen College Reg. 1853, i. 95; Le Neve's Pedigrees of Knights (Harl. Soc. Publ. vol. viii.). pp. 346, 369; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. xi. 378, 468, 4th ser. iii. 216, 5th ser. vi. 207, 8th ser. v. 407, ix. 307, 439; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1665–6 p. 192, 1667–8 p. 238; Lansdowne MS. (Brit. Mus.) 255; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. App. pp. 467, 471, 472, 494, 679, 8th Rep. App. i. p. 166, 11th Rep. App. ii. pp. 46, 197–8, 13th Rep. App. v. 344–5, App. vi. p. 20; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890.]
SCROOP, LAURENCE (1577-1643), jesuit. [See Anderton.]
