On December 22, 1629, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland turned toward the parish of Traquair in Peeblesshire, where Margaret Johnestoun was formally named in a legal proceeding regarding witchcraft. The case, cataloged under the reference C/EGD/637, was not an isolated event; Margaret was identified alongside twenty-six other individuals. In the context of seventeenth-century Scottish jurisprudence, the inclusion of a person in such a large group often signaled the onset of a communal crisis, where accusations frequently rippled outward through social networks and neighborhoods.
Following the initial registration of the case, the trail in the surviving archives leads to the subsequent trial, recorded under reference T/JO/569. While the administrative records confirm that a trial occurred, the specific testimonies, the nature of the allegations brought against Margaret, and the eventual verdict remain absent from the extant papers. Consequently, while we know of her inclusion in this significant legal action involving nearly thirty defendants, the details of Margaret’s lived experience during these proceedings remain lost to the silence of history.