In the late spring of 1591, the legal machinery of the Scottish state focused its attention upon Marie Patersone, a resident of the burgh of Haddington. On the 8th of May, 1591, her case was formally entered into the judicial register under the designation C/EGD/98. At a time when the authorities were increasingly preoccupied with the perceived threat of maleficium—often exacerbated by the climate of religious and political instability following the Reformation—Marie was brought before the apparatus of the law to answer for charges pertaining to the practice of witchcraft.
The subsequent proceedings against Marie are documented under the trial reference T/LA/947. While the surviving records provide the skeletal framework of her arrest and the legal processing of her case, they serve as a stark reminder of the gravity with which the Scottish courts approached such accusations during the late sixteenth century. Her transition from a member of the Haddington community to a defendant in a witchcraft trial highlights the specific administrative and judicial processes that defined this turbulent period in early modern Scottish history.