On July 25, 1649, Margaret Brotherstone, a resident of Humbie in Haddington, was identified as a subject of legal proceedings concerning allegations of witchcraft. Her name appears within a formal request for a commission, a necessary administrative step in the seventeenth-century Scottish legal process to authorize the trial of those accused of diabolical crimes. Margaret was not alone in this scrutiny; she was listed alongside twelve other individuals, suggesting a period of intensified judicial activity within the Humbie area during the summer of 1649.
While the surviving documentation does not provide the specific nature of the charges brought against her, the legal record confirms that a confession was formally taken from Margaret on the same day the commission was requested. This document stands as the primary evidence of her encounter with the judicial authorities during this wave of prosecutions. Beyond this date and her association with the group of thirteen, the archival record remains silent regarding the ultimate outcome of her trial or the specific activities for which she was held to account.