In the autumn of 1649, Robert Grieve, a resident of Bourhouses in Berwickshire, found himself entangled in the legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials. On the 2nd of October, his case was formally registered under reference C/EGD/1980, marking the beginning of an ordeal that would see him brought before the authorities to answer for allegations of witchcraft. While archival researchers have noted the possibility that Robert’s origins may have been in the royal burgh of Lauder, the surviving documentation firmly situates his life and his legal struggles within the context of the Berwickshire community.
Following the initiation of his case, Robert underwent the formal processes of the Scottish judicial system, eventually appearing at his trial, indexed as T/LA/1997. The records of this period reflect the intense scrutiny applied to those suspected of diabolical pacts or the exercise of malevolent magic, a climate that frequently drew men and women alike into the courtroom. For Robert, the judicial proceedings represented a critical moment of confrontation with the accusations leveled against him, standing as a matter of official record within the tumultuous history of mid-seventeenth-century Scotland.