In December 1679, the legal records of the Scottish judiciary noted the case of Margaret Hamilton, designated in the proceedings as "secondus" to distinguish her from others of the same name within the locality. A widow residing in the coastal burgh of Bo'ness in Linlithgow, Margaret found herself drawn into the machinery of the early modern Scottish legal system under the classification of witchcraft. Her entry in the official records, cataloged under C/EGD/1911, marks her as one of the many individuals subjected to judicial scrutiny during a period when such accusations remained a persistent feature of the social and legal landscape.
While the administrative files survive, the specific testimonies and arguments presented during her legal proceedings have not been preserved. The trial notes associated with her case, T/JO/608, offer no further detail regarding the nature of the allegations brought against Margaret, nor do they record the final judgment delivered by the court. Consequently, Margaret remains a figure defined by her presence in the formal registers of the seventeenth-century Scottish state, a widow whose life intersected briefly and irrevocably with the witch trials of the late Restoration era.