In the late summer of 1649, the judicial machinery of the Scottish witch-hunts reached into the parish of Stow, situated within the jurisdiction of Edinburgh. On September 2, 1649, Margaret Dunholme was formally recorded in the legal registers under the case reference C/EGD/2378, marking the commencement of proceedings against her. At this time, Scotland was experiencing an intense period of preoccupation with the perceived threat of maleficium, and Margaret’s identification as a subject of inquiry placed her within the purview of the local kirk sessions and the centralized legal apparatus that governed such accusations.
The documentation regarding Margaret remains limited, reflecting the gaps often found in the extant court records of the mid-seventeenth century. While the specific nature of the allegations brought against her—whether they involved communal disputes, reports of supernatural interference, or accusations of pacts—is not preserved in the surviving entry, the registration of her case confirms her transition into the formal judicial process of the era. This brief historical footprint serves as a stark reminder of the gravity with which the authorities in Stow approached such matters, documenting Margaret at the precise moment her life became entangled with the rigid legal and theological frameworks of the period.