trial, he treated Ellen Rigby, the former housekeeper at the Benedictine house in London, with great respect, and told the jury to treat her evidence for the defence as credible, a tribute to her forceful personality. Personality and lifestyle Scroggs was a judge at a time when many members of the High Court Bench were considered corrupt and unfair, and his temper and treatment of defendants were an example of the endemic problems with the judiciary, whose coarse and brutal manners shocked most educated laymen. He served on the bench during the same period as Judge Jeffreys who has been criticised for similarly poor treatment of defendants and witnesses. Kenyon notes that while their behaviour in Court seems "degrading and disgusting" by modern standards, at the time it was taken for granted: "the judges' manners were rough because they were a rough lot". Scroggs was the subject of many contemporary satires; he was reputed to live a debauched lifestyle, he was undoubtedly a heavy drinker, and his manners during trials were considered 'coarse' and 'violent'.Roger North, who knew him well, described him as a man of great wit and fluency, but "scandalous, violent, intemperate and extreme". Forty years after his death, Jonathan Swift in his celebrated attack on William Whitshed, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, called him "as vile and profligate a villain as Scroggs". Legal writings Scroggs was the author of a work on the Practice of Courts-Leet and Courts-Baron (published posthumously in London, 1701), and he edited reports of the state trials over which he presided. Authorities William Cobbett, Complete Collection of State Trials (vols. i.-x. of State Trials, 33 vols, London, 1809) Roger North, Life of Lord Guilford, etc., edited by A Jessopp (3 vols, London, 1890), and Examen (London, 1740) Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Relation of State Affairs, 1678-1714 (6 vols, Oxford, 1857) Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, edited by P Bliss (4 vols, London, 1813–1820) Correspondence of the Family of Hatton, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson (2 vols, Camden Society 22, 23, London, 1878) Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices of England (3 vols, London, 1849–1857) Edward Foss, The Judges of England (9 vols, London, 1848–1864) Sir JF Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England (3 vols, London, 1883) Harry Brodribb Irving, Life of Judge Jeffreys (London, 1898). John Philipps Kenyon The Popish Plot Phoenix Press Reissue 2000 See also Weald Hall References