thirteen articles against the Chief Justice before the privy council, and Oates declared that “he believed he should be able to prove that my Lord Chief Justice danced naked.” On January 21 Scroggs justified himself in a set reply of great skill and wit, and the informers met with a severe rebuff.[705] His other traducers were treated with no greater courtesy. At the opening of the courts for the Michaelmas term of 1679 Scroggs made an able speech of eloquence, distinction, and almost sobriety, in which he grounded his belief in the Plot on the correspondence of Coleman and Harcourt and vindicated the integrity of the judicial honour; and on May 20, 1680 one Richard Radley was fined £200 for saying that the Chief Justice had “received money enough from Dr. Wakeman for his acquittal.”[706] In September 1679 he was received with great favour at the court at Windsor and in December caused horrid embarrassment to Lord Shaftesbury and several other Whig noblemen, whom he met at dinner with the Lord Mayor, by proposing the health of the Duke of York and justifying his own conduct on the bench.[707] In January 1681 he was impeached by the Commons. When the articles of his impeachment were brought up to the House of Lords he was treated, to the indignation of the Whig party, with great consideration and favour; but although the lords refused even to put the question “whether there shall now be an address to the king to suspend Sir William Scroggs from the execution of his place until his trial be over?” he was absent from court at the beginning of the Hilary term, and did not take his place upon the bench during the rest of the term.[708] Three days after the opening of the Oxford parliament Scroggs put in his answer to the impeachment. He denied the truth of the articles exhibited against him severally, and insisted that the nature of the facts alleged in them was not such as could legally be made the ground for a charge of high treason. He prayed the king for a speedy trial.[709] Copies of his answer and petition were sent to the House of Commons, but before further proceedings could be taken Parliament was dissolved on March 28, and the impeachment was blown to the winds in company with other Whig measures of greater importance and still less good repute. The Chief Justice was not left long in the enjoyment of his triumph. In April 1681 Charles removed him from the bench and appointed Sir Francis Pemberton to be Chief Justice in his place. The move was no doubt directed by the approaching trial of Fitzharris. For this was undertaken in the teeth of the bitter opposition of the Whig party, and it was expedient that a man who was already odious to Shaftesbury’s adherents should not endanger the success of the crown by his presence on the bench on so important an occasion. The late Chief Justice was compensated by an annual pension of £1500 and the appointment of his son to be one of “his Majesty’s counsel learned in the law.”[710]