In the summer of 1628, Beatrix Cuthbertson, a resident of the coastal town of Prestonpans in Haddington, found herself drawn into the judicial machinery of the Scottish witch trials. On August 8, 1628, official proceedings commenced against her, marking the beginning of a formal legal process under case reference C/EGD/1028. Like many others in the seventeenth-century Lowlands, she was subjected to the scrutiny of local authorities, a period during which the mechanisms of the state and the kirk focused intently on allegations of diabolical pacts and harm.
The gravity of the charges brought against Beatrix is underscored by the existence of a formal confession, recorded later that same year under trial reference T/LA/500. This document, preserved within the historical record, provides the final point of documentation regarding her experience. Though the specific content of her testimony remains tied to the legal framework of 1628, the archival evidence confirms that Beatrix underwent the full progression of the judicial system, from her initial naming in the local courts to the culmination of her trial through a recorded confession.