In the summer of 1649, Margaret Tullie was drawn into the judicial machinery of seventeenth-century Scotland when she was brought before authorities in Haddington on charges of witchcraft. Margaret was not tried alone; she was accused alongside two other women, yet the circumstances of their apprehension remained distinct from the usual parochial framework of the time. Records indicate that none of these three women were subject to the local authority of the ministers or the presbytery, suggesting to contemporary officials that they were not members of the local community, but rather individuals of transient or uncertain residence.
The legal proceedings against Margaret moved with relative swiftness following her initial appearance on July 11, 1649. On that same day, she provided the first of two formal confessions, a process that concluded two weeks later on July 25. While the specific nature of her alleged activities remains limited, the core of the case against her centered on her involvement in a witches’ meeting. Beyond these dates and the nature of the charge, the surviving documentation—catalogued under case reference C/JO/2668 and trial record T/JO/99—offers no further narrative of the outcome or the particulars of the evidence presented against Margaret and her companions.