In June 1629, Thomas Stoddart, a resident of Mylneknow in the county of Peebles, became caught in the mechanisms of a significant judicial inquiry into witchcraft. His case, cataloged under the reference C/EGD/656, marks his involvement in a broader prosecution that swept through the region, as he was named alongside twenty-six other individuals during the legal proceedings initiated on the 11th of that month.
While the subsequent trial record, T/JO/556, contains no specific details regarding the testimony or the eventual outcome of the case against Thomas, its existence confirms his inclusion in a collective indictment common to the era’s mass trials. Like many accused during this period in early modern Scotland, his experience was defined by the formal administrative processes of the kirk session and the circuit courts, leaving behind only these terse bureaucratic traces of a legal process that involved a significant number of his peers.