In the spring of 1662, the royal burgh of Haddington became the site of a legal proceeding involving Jon Bartleman, a married man caught in the wide-reaching influence of a local denunciation. The legal scrutiny of Jon emerged from the testimony of James Welch, a young boy whose own alleged involvement in witchcraft led to his imprisonment, as he was deemed too youthful to face the full weight of a formal trial. Despite the boy's youth, his detailed accusations were treated with significant gravity by the authorities, prompting the inclusion of Jon and his wife among those implicated in his confession.
Following these denunciations, Jon was processed through the legal system under case reference C/EGD/498 and subsequently appeared for trial (T/LA/1318) on April 17, 1662. The proceedings reflected the intense judicial pressure placed upon the community of Haddington during this period, as local magistrates acted upon the evidence provided by Welch to address the charges leveled against the couple. For Jon, this transition from his married life in the burgh to the center of a witchcraft investigation underscores the precarious nature of testimony and legal standing during the seventeenth-century Scottish trials.