In the winter of 1629, the judicial machinery of Haddington began to focus on a local woman named Alesoun Carrick, as the scrutiny of the local authorities intensified around suspected practitioners of witchcraft. Her implication in these proceedings stemmed directly from the testimony of Alexander Hammiltoun, a self-confessed warlock. On December 4, 1629, Hammiltoun provided a formal denunciation, identifying Alesoun as a known witch, a claim that would ultimately lead to her confinement within the Haddington tolbooth alongside other women facing similar charges.
By the summer of 1630, the legal process reached a critical juncture. On July 2, 1630, official commissioners convened at Haddington to preside over the trials, with a mandate for the local brethren to attend the proceedings. Under the authority of an assize, Alesoun was brought before the court to confront her accuser, Hammiltoun, as the commissioners examined the evidence gathered against her. The records of case C/EGD/1142 and trial T/JO/79 stand as the final administrative markers of her appearance in the seventeenth-century Scottish legal system.
