In the spring of 1662, the legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials descended upon the parish of Auldearn in Nairn, ensnaring a woman named Bessie Hay. Her case, documented under reference C/EGD/443, emerged during a period of intense judicial scrutiny regarding alleged diabolical activities in the region. On the 14th of April, Bessie was formally processed within the administrative apparatus of the Kirk and the local courts, marking the commencement of a grave legal struggle that would eventually culminate in her appearance before the High Court of Justiciary.
The subsequent proceedings against Bessie are preserved in the trial records categorized under T/LA/1832. While the archival fragments remain sparse, they attest to the severe gravity with which the authorities treated her case, typical of the systematic pursuit of perceived practitioners of maleficium during the mid-seventeenth century. By the time Bessie stood before the bench to answer for the accusations leveled against her, she became a focal point of the local effort to purge the community of suspected supernatural influence, a process that adhered strictly to the established judicial frameworks of Restoration-era Scotland.