In September 1679, Isobell Hislop, a sixty-year-old widow from Crichton in Edinburgh, found her name recorded on a Porteous roll—the formal instrument used by the Scottish criminal justice system to list individuals indicted for trial. As the widow of James Wilson, Isobell was caught within a wider net of legal proceedings that targeted several residents of Crichton simultaneously. Along with G. Penman and two other unnamed individuals, she faced the gravest of early modern charges: accusations of witchcraft, sorcery, and necromancy. These indictments carried the standard legal formula of the era, which alleged that the accused had renounced their Christian baptism and surrendered themselves, both body and soul, to the Devil.
The legal process surrounding Isobell was protracted, spanning several years within the circuit courts. Her name reappears in the judicial records as late as July 1683, when she and her co-accused were once again indicted for witchcraft and necromancy in bundle 4 of the Edinburgh Porteous Roll (JC26/62). However, the progression of this case took an unexpected turn; a marginal note inscribed in the official record states that Isobell and her three associates were "all absent and resited." This notation suggests that the accused individuals were not present to face the court at the time of these later proceedings, marking the final trace of Isobell within the surviving legal archives of the period.