Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/135

 fessed by the Church of England,’ 1674, fol. 3. ‘A Treatise against Drunkennesse described in its Nature, Kindes, Effectes, and Causes, especially that of drinking healths, to which are added two short Sermons of St. Augustine,’ London, 1685. 4. ‘The Method and Means to a true Spiritual Life, consisting of three parts agreeable to the ancient way’ (posthumous), 1688, 8vo.

[Authorities as in text; Scrivener's Works.]

 SCROGGS, WILLIAM (1623?–1683), lord chief justice, was born at Deddington in Oxfordshire about 1623. The status of his parents is somewhat doubtful, but his father, who is described as William Scroggs of Deddington ‘pleb.’ (, Alum. Oxon. 1500–1714, iv. 1326), was probably a retired butcher of considerable means. Dugdale told Wood that Scroggs ‘was the son of an one-ey'd butcher near Smithfield Bars, and his mother a big fat woman with a red face like an ale-wife’ (Athenæ Oxon. 1820, iv. 119). North and Luttrell also state that he was a butcher's son (Lives of the Norths, 1890, i. 196; A Brief Relation of State Affairs, 1857, i. 74), and the squibs with which he was assailed in after life constantly alluded to his father's business as that of a butcher.

At the age of sixteen young Scroggs matriculated at Oxford from Oriel College on 17 May 1639. He subsequently removed to Pembroke, where he became ‘master of a good Latin stile, and a considerable disputant’ (, Athenæ Oxon. iv. 115). He graduated B.A. on 23 Jan. 1640, and M.A. on 26 June 1643. Wood says that Scroggs was intended for the church, and that his father had ‘procured for him the reversion of a good parsonage,’ but that having fought for the king as ‘a captain of a foot company, he was thereby disingaged from enjoying it’ (ib. iv. 116). It is clear, however, that Scroggs had chosen the profession of the law before the civil war broke out, as he was admitted a member of Gray's Inn on 22 Feb. 1641. In the entry of his admission he is described as ‘William Scroggs of Stifford, Essex, gent.’ (, Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1889, p. 229). He was called to the bar on 27 June 1653, and his name appears for the first time in the ‘Reports’ as counsel for the defendant in Campion's case, which came before the upper bench in Trinity term, 1658 (, ii. 97). According to North, ‘his person was large, visage comely, and speech witty and bold. He was a great voluptuary and companion of the high court rakes. … His debaucheries were egregious, and his life loose, which made the lord chief justice Hales detest him’ (, Lives, i. 196). He was knighted by Charles II not long after the Restoration, but, greatly to Dugdale's annoyance, refused to pay the fees which were due to the college of arms (, Athenæ Oxon. iv. 119). The exact date of his knighthood is not known. He is, however, designated by his title in a petition which he presented to the king in April 1665, alleging that he had been suspended from his place as ‘one of the city of London's council,’ on account of his inability to walk before the lord mayor on certain days of solemnity owing to the wounds which he had sustained in the cause of the late king (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1664–5, p. 310). In January 1667 he appears to have impressed Pepys by his arguments in the House of Lords in the Duke of Buckingham's claim to the barony of De Ros (Diary and Correspondence, 1848–9, iii. 380). In April 1668 he was assigned as counsel for Sir William Penn, but the impeachment was not proceeded with (, State Trials, vi. 876).

On 23 June 1669 Scroggs was elected a bencher of Gray's Inn. He took the degree of the coif in October 1669, and on 2 Nov. following he was made a king's serjeant (, i. 435;, Miscellany, 1765, p. 297). On one occasion after he had become a serjeant, Scroggs was arrested on a king's bench warrant for assault and battery. Scroggs pleaded the privilege of his order, but Hale and the other justices of the king's bench decided against him. It would seem, however, that upon appeal to the exchequer chamber North gave his opinion that serjeants had a privilege to be sued in the court of common pleas only (, Lives, i. 90;, ii. 129; , iii. 424; , i. 389; Modern Reports, ii. 296).

Through the influence of the Earl of Danby, Scroggs was appointed a justice of the court of common pleas, in the place of Sir William Ellis. He took his seat on the bench on 23 Oct. 1676, and ‘made so excellent a speech that my lord Northampton, then present, went from Westminster to Whitehall immediately, told the king he had, since his happy restoration, caused many hundred sermons to be printed, all 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’ (Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, &c., 1828, i. 2). On the removal of Sir Thomas Rainsford, Scroggs was rewarded for his subserviency to the court by his appointment as lord chief justice of Eng-