He was not remarkable at school for application to his studies, though his wonderful memory enabled him to make good progress in them; he frequently played truant and was whipped for it, robbed orchards, and indulged in other questionable schoolboy pranks; nor did he always come out of his scrapes with honour and a character for truthfulness.

On 18 November 1772, Scott, with the aid of a ladder and an old friend, carried off the lady from her father's house in the Sandhill, across the border to Blackshields, in Scotland, where they were married.

But while the bride's family refused to associate with the couple, Scott, like a prudent man and an affectionate father, set himself to make the best of a bad matter, and received them kindly, settling on his son £2000.

John returned with his wife to Oxford, and continued to hold his fellowship for what is called the year of grace given after marriage, and added to his income by acting as a private tutor.

[1] John Scott's year of grace closed without any college living falling vacant; and with his fellowship he gave up the church and turned to the study of law.

In 1776, he was called to the bar, intending at first to establish himself as an advocate in his native town, a scheme which his early success led him to abandon, and he soon settled to the practice of his profession in London, and on the northern circuit.

His brother William, who by this time was the Camden professor of ancient history at Oxford, and enjoyed an extensive acquaintance with men of eminence in London, was in a position materially to advance his interests.

Young Scott was retained as junior counsel in the case, and though he lost the petition he did not fail to improve the opportunity which it afforded for displaying his talents.

In 1782, he obtained a silk gown, and was so far cured of his early modesty that he declined accepting the king's counselship if precedence over him were given to his junior, Thomas Erskine, though the latter was the son of a peer and a most accomplished orator.

In 1788, he was appointed Solicitor General, and was knighted, and at the close of this year he attracted attention by his speeches in support of Pitt's resolutions on the state of the king (George III, who then labored under a mental malady) and the delegation of his authority.

In 1793, Sir John Scott was promoted to the office of Attorney-General, in which it fell to him to conduct the memorable prosecutions for high treason against British sympathizers with French republicanism, among others, against the celebrated Horne Tooke.

In Gee v Pritchard he wrote,[3] "Nothing would inflict on me greater pain in quitting this place, than the recollection that I had done anything to justify the reproach that the equity of this court varies like the Chancellor's foot.

[4] When, after the two short administrations of Canning and Goderich, it fell to the Duke of Wellington to construct a cabinet, Lord Eldon expected to be included, if not as chancellor, at least in some important office, but he was chagrined at being overlooked at Robert Peel's insistence, in a decisive break with the High Tory past.

[8] John Wade, compiler of The Black Book, or Corruption Unmasked detailed in precise figures how Eldon's "almost incredible wealth" was due to state "emoluments of which he and his family monopolize to an inordinate degree.

"[16] John Wade equally noted: "there is no absurdity in law, no intolerance in church government; no arbitrary state measure, of which he is not the surly, furious, and bigoted advocate.

[21] [22] In 1831, while returning to Purbeck in an open carriage from the declaration at the Dorset county election in the company of George Bankes, he was stoned at Wareham by a mob of a hundred men.