In the spring of 1613, the judicial machinery of the Scottish state focused its attention upon Alisoun Denis, a widowed resident of the burgh of Haddington. Her legal proceedings began on April 7, an event documented within the records of the High Court of Justiciary under the reference C/EGD/864. As a widow, Alisoun occupied a vulnerable position within the social structure of the early seventeenth-century burgh, a period when the theological and legislative framework established by the Witchcraft Act of 1563 rendered such women frequent subjects of intense judicial scrutiny.
Following the initial registration of her case, Alisoun was committed to the formal trial process, designated in the extant archives as T/LA/223. The transition from her preliminary case file to the formal trial record reflects the standard bureaucratic progression of witchcraft prosecutions during this era, wherein the local magistrates and legal officials of Haddington sought to substantiate charges against her. Though the specific testimonies and accusations levied against Alisoun remain bound within the brevity of these administrative entries, the existence of both a case file and a subsequent trial record confirms that her encounter with the Scottish justice system reached a definitive, formal stage before the assize.