Margaret Fulton was an indweller of East Kilpatrick in the county of Renfrew, a woman of middling socioeconomic status whose life became inextricably linked to the significant Renfrewshire witch trials of 1697. Amidst a wave of panic that saw upwards of twenty-eight individuals accused of involvement in supernatural activities, Margaret was identified as one of seven people selected to stand formal trial. Following her initial appearance before the justice courts on 13 April 1697, the judicial proceedings were postponed until 12 May. When the trial finally convened in Renfrew, it proved to be a lengthy and rigorous affair, continuing for a full week until 19 May.
The evidence presented against Margaret centered upon the grave charge of attending a witches' meeting. At the conclusion of the trial, the court returned a verdict of guilty. Consequently, she was sentenced to death and ultimately executed on 10 June 1697 at the Gallow Green. In accordance with the judicial customs of the era, the sentence was carried out by strangulation followed by burning. Her case stands as a stark archival record of the legal mechanisms and social tensions that defined the final decades of Scotland’s historical period of witch-hunting.