Christian Tailyour was a landless woman residing in Edinburgh during the early seventeenth century. Her standing within the community was precarious; while the Privy Council records contain no specific geographic designation for her, the presbytery of Edinburgh officially classified her as a vagabond. This designation—used to describe those without fixed employment or settled status—often rendered individuals like Christian particularly vulnerable to scrutiny under the social and religious tensions of the era.
On September 4, 1628, the legal proceedings against Christian reached a critical juncture when she was brought before authorities alongside two other individuals. On that same date, a formal confession was recorded, though the subsequent historical record for her case, indexed as T/JO/304, lacks details regarding a formal trial. Consequently, the resolution of these proceedings remains absent from the surviving documentation, leaving Christian’s experience marked by her initial appearance, her classification as a vagabond, and the confession documented on that late summer day.