9 - Upright intentions

Summary

It is easy to consider John Scott's public career as falling solely into two parts: the first consisting of his work as a law officer, and the second his work as Lord Chancellor. Indeed, one might almost be forgiven for forgetting that he was also Chief Justice of the court of Common Pleas. He held the post for less than two years, from July 1799 until May 1801, and coming, as it did, between the better-known phases of his public life, it tends to be neglected. While understandable, however, such a tendency is not a salutary one. Lord Eldon's Chief Justiceship was an important period of transition for him. It brought to a close eleven years of government advocacy, and receipt of a peerage ended his fifteen-year membership of the House of Commons. The professional and political pressures upon him had been considerable, and on the bench he achieved a partial, if incomplete, respite from them. He also began, in this period, the process of reflection and assessment necessary to any politician whose career is to be a lengthy one. Always keenly self-conscious, Eldon's evaluation of his work as a law officer had previously, of necessity, occurred while he was fully engaged in it. His judicial appointment afforded him a certain distance, from which he could begin to view and express his attitudes toward contemporary society before these had been hardened into unshakeable tenets by the passage of time and renewed stress.