In the late summer of 1661, Marjory Wilson, a resident of Edinburgh, found herself at the centre of a rigorous legal process concerning the practice of witchcraft. Her ordeal began in the final weeks of July, during which time she was subjected to a series of interrogations that resulted in recorded confessions on the 21st, 22nd, 24th, and 25th of July. These depositions, which took place against the backdrop of an era deeply concerned with the presence of supernatural influence, culminated in a final recorded statement on the 3rd of August, 1661.
The charges brought against Marjory specifically included allegations of participating in a witches' meeting, an act considered a grave transgression under the laws of the period. Following the conclusion of her trial in Edinburgh on that same day, she was found guilty of the charges leveled against her. In accordance with the judicial practices of mid-seventeenth-century Scotland, the sentence was carried out immediately: Marjory was executed on the 3rd of August, 1661, by the method of strangulation followed by burning.