In the spring of 1662, the town of Haddington became the site of a sprawling judicial inquiry into witchcraft, precipitated by the numerous denunciations of James Welch. Among those caught in the resulting legal dragnet was Nicoll Stillie, a married man whose entire family faced accusations of involvement in dark arts. The judicial records, which occasionally identify his family name as Steills, highlight a communal crisis where multiple members of the same household were simultaneously swept into the periphery of the criminal justice system.
Though authorities took Nicoll’s confession and the accusations he leveled against others with significant gravity, his age served as a unique point of contention within the proceedings. Deemed too young to undergo the formal rigors of a criminal trial, Nicoll was spared the finality of a courtroom verdict. Instead, he remained in custody, held in imprisonment as the legal process concluded around him. His case stands as a notable example of how the Scottish courts of the era navigated the complex intersection of age, testimony, and collective family suspicion during the intense witch-hunting climate of the mid-seventeenth century.