In September 1678, Margaret Dalgleish, a married woman residing in the parish of Humbie in Haddington, found herself at the centre of a formal legal proceeding. The records, filed under case reference C/EGD/690, document the initiation of a prosecution against her for the crime of witchcraft. This period in Scottish history was marked by a rigorous judicial focus on such accusations, with the process requiring the accused to answer for their alleged spiritual transgressions before the high courts.
When the trial convened on 13 September 1678 in Edinburgh, Margaret did not appear to face the charges brought against her. Consequently, the court recorded her absence by declaring her a fugitive. Following the strict legal protocols of the era, she was "put to the horn"—a symbolic and formal act of outlawry in which a public official sounded a horn to announce that the individual had failed to answer the summons of the Crown. By this proclamation, Margaret was officially cast outside the protection of the law, concluding her involvement in the formal judicial record.