In December 1628, Margaret Baine, a middling indweller of the village of Langniddry in Haddington, found herself drawn into the judicial machinery of the Scottish witch trials. As an individual of middling socioeconomic status, Margaret occupied a position of relative stability within her local community, yet this status did not shield her from the legal scrutiny that characterized the period. On the 4th of December, her name was formally entered into the records under case reference C/EGD/1061, marking the beginning of a process that would move her from her life in Langniddry into the formal chambers of the Haddington courts.
The subsequent proceedings against Margaret are documented in trial record T/LA/606. Within the context of seventeenth-century Scottish jurisprudence, these documents represent the culmination of the legal process initiated against her. While the records provide a clear administrative trail of her arrest and trial, they capture a moment in time where the concerns of the Kirk session and the local authorities intersected with the daily life of a resident of Haddington. The documentation remains a stark testament to the structured legal approach taken toward accusations of witchcraft during this era.