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nobis placuerit; but the judges of the Exchequer were appointed quam diu se bene gesserint. James I. was advised by Bacon to exercise this power in the case of Sir Edward Coke, (see Bacon's Works, vi. 125); and in the succeeding reign, Sir Randolph Crewe (who had resisted the system of illegal loans and benevolences) and Sir Robert Heath were unceremoniously displaced. In the year 1640, the House of Lords petitioned that the patents of all the judges should be made quam diu se bene gesserint, and not as formerly, durante bene placito; “unto which request his majesty was graciously pleased to condescend." Cromwell appears to have paid but little regard to this regulation, and removed a baron of the Exchequer, and one of the judges of the Upper Bench. For some time after the Restoration, the patents of the judges pursued the form adopted by Charles I., and ran quam diu, &c.; but the inconvenience of not holding those offices altogether dependant upon the Crown was soon felt, and the old form of the patents, durante bene placito, was restored. The time when this alteration first took place is not clearly ascertained; but it was probably before Dighton's case, which was tried in the King's Bench, in Trinity Term, 1670; on which occasion, the offices of judicature in Westminster Hall were said by the court to be held durante bene placito. The patent of Sir Richard Rainsford, who was made one of the judges of the King's Bench, in the year 1678, was durante bene placito.-(Siderfin's Rep. p. 408.)

The appointment of the judges at this period, as at present, was virtually in the power of the Lord Chancellor; but this right of patronage was disputed by Jefferies, when chief justice, with North, then Lord Keeper. The chief justice was supported by a strong party at court, who were adverse to the Lord Keeper, and anxiously resorted to every device in order to lessen his influence. Upon one occasion they succeeded in procuring the appointment of Sir Robert Wright to a puisne seat on the bench, against the opinion of North, and certainly to the public scandal of the government. This incident is a striking proof of the extent to which the system of corruption was carried at the court of Charles II., and of the influence which Jefferies possessed with the king. Sir Robert Wright was "a comely person, airy and flourishing, both in his habits and way of living," but at the same time so wretched a lawyer, that he was absolutely unable to give an opinion; and when a case was laid before him, he usually applied for assistance to his friend, North, who furnished him with an opinion, which Wright copied and signed. Having dissipated his estate in debauchery, and finding himself on the brink of ruin, he ap

plied to Jefferies to rescue him from his difficulties, by getting him made a judge. Upon a vacancy occurring, the king consulted the Lord Keeper respecting a proper person to fill it, adding, "My lord, what think you of Serjeant Wright? why may not he be the man?" North answered, that he knew him but too well, and was satisfied that he was the most unfit person in England to be made a judge. "Then," said the king, "it must not be ;" and the matter was for a time suspended. We shall relate the sequel in the words of Roger North.

"Wright still by his friend Jefferies pushed his point, and in the interim worked all he could by most importunate applications and bitter tears, (but for no other reason than that if he failed now he was utterly ruined), to gain his lordship to yield that he might be a judge: but to no purpose; his lordship was inflexible: and though he wished the poor man well, upon account of old acquaintance, he would not gratify him at the cost of his own breach of duty, or rather, in that respect, perjury. The king took his time more than once to speak to my lord-keeper, saying, as before, Why may not Wright be a judge? and at last, Is it impossible, my lord? His lordship seeing the king's pangs, for it was plain that this man, by the secret court claim, was determined to be preferred; for he was a creature of Jefferies, and a tool that would do any thing; and they wanted only the formality of my lord-keeper's concurrence, (to whom the king positively would have a due respect paid), took the freedom to say, that the making a judge was his majesty's pleasure, and not his choice; that he was bound to put the seal as he commanded, whatever the person was, for of that his majesty was to judge, and finally determine. He could but do his duty by informing of his majesty of what he knew to be true; and particularly of this man whom he personally knew to be a dunce, and no lawyer; not worth a groat, having spent his estate by debauched living; of no truth nor honesty, but guilty of wilful perjury to gain the borrowing a sum of money: and then he opened more at large the matter of the affidavit." And now," said the lord-keeper, "I have done my duty to your majesty, and am ready to obey your majesty's commands, in case it be your pleasure that this man shall be a judge."-" My lord keeper," said the king, "I thank you," and went away; and soon after the warrant came and he was instated.". (Vol. ii. p. 174.)

It is not surprising that a man so peculiarly fitted to become the instrument of unconstitutional measures as Wright was, should find favour in the eyes of James II. He was accordingly in that reign appointed chief justice; but his conduct was such, as even to extort from his former patron, Jefferies, at that time chancellor, the appellation of beast.

Amongst the many profligate men whose baseness was the means of elevating them to the bench, during this reign, Sir William Scroggs may, perhaps, be selected as an honest spe

cimen of the class to which he belonged. His birth was mean, being the son of a butcher; but by his own exertions he acquired considerable practice at the bar, and was made a sergeant. His professions of loyalty found favour at court, and he was accordingly appointed chief justice of the King's Bench at the time when North presided over the Common Pleas. Upon the first opening of the Popish plot, he appears to have been deceived into an idea that, by favouring the discoverers of it, he was rendering an acceptable service to the king, and he accordingly interested himself, in a violent and scandalous manner, to procure convictions of persons accused of being participators in the plot; but having received some intimation that the course which he was pursuing was not so agreeable to the king as he had imagined, "he turned as fierce against Oates and his plot, as before he had ranted for it; and thereby gave so great offence to their evidenceships, the plot witnesses, that Oates and Bedloe accused him to the king, and preferred formal articles of divers extravagancies and immoralities against him." Some of the charges brought forward upon this occasion are amusing enough, and, when the character of Scroggs is considered, appear by no means improbable. The sixth article runs as follows-(Howell's St. Tr. viii. 170.)

"That the 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 said place. He did in his common discourse at dinner, at a gentleman's house of quality, publicly and openly use and utter many oaths and curses, and there drank to excess.'

The accusations thus preferred were heard before the king in council, when Scroggs attacked his adversaries with much severity and wit; but, on the failure of sufficient proof, the proceeding was abandoned. Such, however, had been the outrageous conduct of the chief justice upon many occasions, in the King's Bench, that articles of impeachment were prepared against him by the House of Commons, and a charge, very similar to that advanced by Oates and Bedloe, was again made against him.—(St. Tr. viii. 200.)

* The only recorded instance, which at present occurs to us, of a judge venturing to use an oath upon the bench, is to be found in the Year-Book 2 Henry 5. 5. cited in 11 Rep. 53 b. "A dyer was bound that he should not use the dyers' craft for two years, and there Hull held that the bond was against the common law, and, by God, if the plaintiff was here, he should go to prison till he paid a fine to the king."

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"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 answerable to the dignity of so eminent a station; yet he, the said Sir William Scroggs, on the contrary, by his frequent and notorious excesses and debaucheries, and his profane and atheistical discourses, doth daily affront Almighty God, dishonour his majesty, give countenance and encouragement to all manner of vice and wickedness, and bring the highest scandal on the public justice of this kingdom."

This impeachment, some articles of which were probably well founded, fell to the ground on the dissolution of the Parliament, and Scroggs, escaping the punishment which was his due, died at his house in Essex-street of a polypus of the heart.

The immoralities of this man have been commemorated by Roger North, both in the Eramen, and in the Life of his brother the Lord Keeper. "His debaucheries," says he, in the latter work," were egregious, and his life loose, which made the Lord Chief Justice Hales detest him. He was a great voluptuary, and companion of the high court rakes, as Ken, Guy, &c. whose merits, for ought I know, might prefer him." The character of Scroggs, given by Burnet, agrees in all essential particulars with that just cited from Roger North. "He was," says Burnet, "a man more valued for a good readiness in speaking well, than either for learning in his profession, or for any moral virtue.-His life had been indecently scandalous, and his fortunes were very low. He was raised by the Earl of Danby's favour, first to be a judge, and then to be chief justice; and it was a melancholy thing to see so bad, so ignorant, and so poor a man raised to that great post."

The successor of Scroggs in the office of chief justice was Sir Francis Pemberton, a man whose many bad qualities we feel inclined to overlook, when we remember, that he had still sufficient virtue to fall under the displeasure of the Court. " In his youth," says Burnet," he mixed with such lewd company, that he quickly spent all that he had, and ran so deep in debt, that he was cast into a jail where he lay many years, but he followed his studies so close in the jail, that he became one of the ablest men of his profession." A similar account of his early life is given by Roger North. "This man's morals were very indifferent, for his beginnings were debauched, and his study and first practice in the jail. For having been one of the fiercest town rakes, and spent more than he had of his own, his

Ante, vol. viii. p. 17.

case forced him upon that expedient for a lodging; and there he made so good use of his leisure, and busied himself with the cases of his fellow collegiates, whom he informed and advised so skilfully, that he was reputed the most notable fellow within those walls, and at length he came out a sharper at the law." (Life of Lord Guilford. ii. 123).

Having been released from jail, his learning soon procured him practice, and he was made a sergeant, and, in 1679, a puisne judge of the King's Bench. Although Pemberton was sufficiently unprincipled and profligate to meet the views of the Court,

he yet appears to have been wanting in zeal for the prerogative, which was probably the cause of his being displaced the year after his appointment. The Court, however, finding it difficult to discover a man at once so learned, and so licentious, resolved again to employ him, and he was, therefore, shortly after his removal, raised to the chief seat in the King's Bench. Pemberton, according to Roger North, was a better practiser than a judge, and was too much inclined to exercise the prerogatives of a legislator." He had," says that writer," a towering opinion of his own sense and wisdom, and rather made than declared law." The Lord Keeper Guilford used to say of him, that, in making laws, he had outdone kings, lords, and commons. When the great case of the Quo warranto against the city of London was about to be tried, it was not thought proper to trust Pemberton with the conduct of so important an affair, and he was accordingly removed from the King's Bench to make room for Saunders, and was made chief justice of the Common Pleas."It was not," says Roger North," thought any way reasonable, to trust that cause on which the peace of the Government so much depended, in a court where the chief never shewed so much regard to the law as to his own will, and notorious as he was for little honesty, boldness, cunning, and uncontrolable opinion of himself." While chief justice of the Common Pleas, it was his duty to preside at the trial of Lord Russell, and his conduct upon this occasion is thought to have given great displeasure to the Court. It is certain that in the same year he was deprived of his office, and removed from the Privy Council. No lawyer ever underwent such a variety of fortune as Pemberton. Raised from his jail practice to a puisne seat in the King's Bench, he had in the interval between his removal from that office, and his appointment to the chief justiceship, returned to his practice at the bar; and now on his second degradation, he again resumed his station as sergeant. " By that, as it seems the rule is, he lost his style of lordship, and became bare Mr. Sergeant again. His business lay chiefly in the Common Pleas, where his lordship (North) presided, and however some of his brethren were apt to insult him, his lordship was

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