In the autumn of 1678, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland turned its attention toward Margaret Laing, a resident of the parish of Lasswade in Edinburgh. On the 9th of October, her case was officially registered within the legal records under the reference C/EGD/1767. This documentation marks the formal entry of Margaret into a perilous administrative process, placing her at the center of the intensified scrutiny that characterized the witch trials of the late seventeenth century in the Lothians.
While the subsequent judicial proceedings preserved in the High Court of Justiciary records—cataloged as T/JO/599—remain silent regarding the specific evidence or allegations brought against her, the existence of the trial note confirms that Margaret was subjected to the full rigor of the legal system of the time. The transition from the initial registration of her case to a formal trial indicates that her involvement in the legal process moved beyond mere suspicion, though the surviving archives offer no further detail on the outcome of her experience or the nature of the charges she faced.