In January 1662, William Cowan, an indweller of Innerwick in Haddington, found himself at the centre of a judicial inquiry into the practice of witchcraft. As a man of middling socioeconomic status, William occupied a position of relative stability within his community, yet he was subjected to the full weight of the legal mechanisms that governed 17th-century Scotland. His case, formally registered under the reference C/EGD/1423, moved rapidly through the administrative channels of the period, reflecting the heightened anxieties and intensified scrutiny typical of the witch trials occurring during this era.
The legal proceedings culminated in a confession, which was formally recorded during the same month that the initial case was opened. While the specific nature of the allegations brought against him remains unpreserved in the extant trial notes (T/JO/858), the existence of a signed or witnessed confession suggests that William admitted to the activities or supernatural associations attributed to him by his neighbours or the authorities. As a record of his encounter with the early modern Scottish legal system, the documentation of this confession remains a stark, albeit incomplete, testament to the events that transpired in Innerwick during that winter.