In the coastal town of Prestonpans, Haddington, Agnes Kelly lived as a widowed woman of apparent social standing, a status underscored by the employment of her servant, Marjorie Anderson. Her life reached a pivotal and grim juncture on May 2, 1678, when she became the subject of a legal case (C/EGD/1762) involving the grave charge of a demonic pact. While the trial records (T/JO/631) remain bereft of specific procedural details, the context of her accusation is deeply entwined with the broader climate of local surveillance and judicial pressure prevalent in late seventeenth-century Scotland.
The legal proceedings against Agnes were not isolated but functioned within a chain of denunciations. Both Agnes and her servant, Marjorie, were subjected to significant pressure to testify against another local woman, Elspeth Chousley. This effort to secure testimony occurred in an environment where Elspeth had already been apprehended and subjected to extrajudicial beatings. Though the exact nature of the physical duress employed against Agnes remains categorized only as "unknown type," the documentation confirms that she was subjected to torture during this period of legal scrutiny, highlighting the severe measures used to extract confessions and implicate others within the community.