In June 1649, the administrative machinery of the Haddington presbytery turned its attention to Bessie Hogge, a resident of West Fenton in the parish of Dirleton. Her legal entanglement began following an accusation leveled against her by another local woman, Agnes Clarkson. Within the context of the intense witch-hunting climate that gripped Scotland during this period, such denunciations frequently initiated a formal inquiry by ecclesiastical and judicial authorities. Records occasionally identify her by the variant surname Hodgen, yet the specific focus of the authorities remained centered on the charges of maleficium brought against her in the mid-seventeenth century.
By late June 1649, the judicial process had advanced to a point where a formal statement was secured from the accused. According to the surviving documentation, Bessie provided a confession during that same month. While the specific contents of her testimony and the eventual conclusion of her legal proceedings are not preserved in the extant trial notes, her case remains part of the formal record of the Scottish witch trials. The sparse archival trail left by Bessie underscores the gravity of the accusations faced by women in her community and the administrative precision with which such cases were documented by the kirk and secular courts of the era.