John Scrope (circa 1662 – 9 April 1752) was a British lawyer and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

from 1722 to 1752.

Early life

Scrope was the son of Thomas Scrope, a Bristol merchant, the third son and ultimate heir of Colonel

Adrian Scrope Colonel Adrian Scrope, also spelt Scroope, 12 January 1601 to 17 October 1660, was a Parliamentarian soldier during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and one of those who signed the death warrant for Charles I in January 1649. Despite being promi ...

Wormsley Wormsley is a private estate of Mark Getty and his family, set in of rolling countryside in the Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire (formerly Oxfordshire), England. It is also the home of Garsington Opera. Acquired by John Paul Getty, Jr., Sir Paul ...

in Oxfordshire, the latter hung drawn and quartered after the restoration as one of the

regicides of Charles I Following the trial of Charles I in January 1649, 59 commissioners (judges) signed his death warrant. They, along with several key associates and numerous court officials, were the subject of punishment following the restoration of the monarch ...

. Scrope was educated at the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

and

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1692. In May 1708, following the Act of Union, he was appointed a Baron (judge) of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland. In this capacity he was one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal from 26 September 1710 (following

Lord Cowper William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper, ( ; 10 October 1723) was an English politician who became the first Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Cowper was the son of Sir William Cowper, 2nd Baronet, of Ratling Court, Kent, a Whig member of parlia ...

's resignation) to 19 October 1710, when Sir Simon Harcourt was appointed

Lord Keeper The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and later of Great Britain, was formerly an officer of the English Crown charged with physical custody of the Great Seal of England. This position evolved into that of one of the Great Officers of Sta ...

Secretary to the Treasury

Scrope was elected to the

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...

for

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city ...

at the general election of 1722 He exchanged his office of Baron of the Exchequer for that of

Secretary to the Treasury In the United Kingdom, there are several Secretaries to the Treasury, who are Treasury ministers nominally acting as secretaries to HM Treasury. The origins of the office are unclear, although it probably originated during Lord Burghley's tenure ...

. He later sat for his home city of

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

and then from 1735 to his death for

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Herita ...

Walpole and the Committee of Secrecy

Scrope was a close ally of Sir

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...

First Lord of the Treasury The first lord of the Treasury is the head of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury exercising the ancient office of Lord High Treasurer in the United Kingdom, and is by convention also the prime minister. This office is not equivalent to the ...

from 1721 to 1742, and after Walpole's resignation was called by a committee of parliament, the Committee of Secrecy under the chairmanship of Lord Limerick, to account for £1,059,211-6s-2d, part of £1,384,600-6s-3d which had passed through Treasury hands within ten years, that could not be accounted for.''A REPORT from the COMMITTEE of SECRECY, appointed to enquire into the Conduct of ROBERT Earl of ORFORD during the last Ten years of his being First Commissioner of the Treasury, and Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of his Majesty's Exchequer.'' As published Scrope refused to account for the money, claiming, with solicitor Paxton, it had been

secret service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...

funds for which he was only accountable to the King.

Nicholas Paxton (1690-1744), solicitor to the Treasury

The attack on Walpole through Scrope failing, the Committee of Secrecy then summoned the Solicitor of the Treasury, Nicholas Paxton and his partners in his law practice though the partners were soon dismissed. Through a number of hearings Paxton continued to decline to answer certain of the questions on the grounds that he might incriminate himself. The Committee considered there was no risk of Paxton incriminating himself and that he must answer. Paxton remained obdurate. Paxton was confined in Newgate Prison, allowed his wife's company but neither was permitted communication with anyone nor the possession of pen or ink or paper. At the end of Parliament's term Paxton was quietly released. Dismissed from his post he died eighteen months later aged only 54. Horace Walpole, who had been junior secretary to Scrope, salved his family's conscience with regard to Paxton by making some provisions for Paxton's son then still at Eton. The Committee of Secrecy with its squabbles and failures was quickly forgotten, so too the immense sums involved. Scrope's honesty, financial knowledge and ability was such that he remained Secretary to the Treasury until his death at about the age of 90, serving more than 28 years in that post.

Death and legacy

As Scrope died without issue, his estate of Wormsley passed to the descendants of his sister Anne (died 1720), who had married Henry Fane. Their second son, Thomas Fane, also a Bristol merchant, succeeded his uncle to Wormsley Park and as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

. Fane also succeeded a distant cousin and became 8th

Earl of Westmorland Earl of Westmorland is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of England. The title was first created in 1397 for Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, Ralph Neville. It was forfeited in 1571 by Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorl ...

in 1762.

References

Edward Foss Edward Foss (16 October 1787 – 27 July 1870) was an English lawyer and biographer. He became a solicitor, and on his retirement from practice in 1840, devoted himself to the study of legal antiquities. His ''Judges of England'' (9 vols., 1848� ...

, ''

Biographia Juridica ''Biographia Juridica: A Biographical Dictionary Of The Judges Of England From The Conquest To The Present Time, 1066-1870'' is a lengthy and rigorous review of the major legal minds in British history. It was compiled by Edward Foss, a lawyer a ...

: a biographical dictionary of the Judges of England from the Conquest to the present time, 1066–1870'', reprinted New Jersey, The Lawbook Exchange Ltd, 1999, p. 604 (online at

google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Scrope, John Year of birth uncertain 1660s births 1752 deaths Members of the Middle Temple Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Bristol Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1722–1727 British MPs 1727–1734 British MPs 1734–1741 British MPs 1741–1747 British MPs 1747–1754