In July 1683, John Hislop, a weaver of middling status residing in the village of Crichton near Edinburgh, found himself caught within the formal machinery of the Scottish judicial system. His inclusion in the Edinburgh Porteous roll—a list of individuals summoned to answer for criminal charges—marked the culmination of several years of legal scrutiny. Alongside three women who shared his surname and are believed to have been his sisters, John faced grave indictments of witchcraft, sorcery, and necromancy. These charges, which carried the weight of capital offenses in late seventeenth-century Scotland, typically encompassed specific, ritualistic allegations, including the renunciation of one’s Christian baptism and the formal surrender of body and soul to the Devil.
The trajectory of this legal ordeal suggests a protracted experience for John and his associates. Records indicate that he was first listed on a Porteous roll of delinquent dittays in August 1679, four years prior to the 1683 indictment. The archival evidence remains fragmentary regarding the specific outcomes of these proceedings; however, documentation from the 1683 bundle notes that for John and his co-accused, the proceedings were marked by their absence. A marginal notation recorded at the time of their earlier appearance simply states that the group were "all absent and resited." This persistent administrative pursuit underscores the gravity with which the authorities viewed these accusations, leaving the final chapter of John’s experience in the historical record defined by the unresolved nature of his case.