In the summer of 1650, the legal apparatus of Haddington was brought to bear upon four individuals accused of witchcraft, among whom was Bessie Adamsone. The archival record for this case, filed under reference C/JO/2732, provides limited narrative context for the events leading to her appearance before the authorities. Despite the scarcity of biographical details regarding her life in the burgh, the documentation confirms that her encounter with the judicial system took place on June 19, 1650.
On that same date, a confession was formally recorded from Bessie. While the specific content of her testimony remains unelaborated in the surviving trial notes (T/JO/180), the act of recording a confession serves as the primary evidence of the proceedings against her. As one of a group of four suspects identified during this period, Bessie represents a fragment of the broader judicial activity that defined the seventeenth-century Scottish witch trials, illustrating the sparse but deliberate bureaucratic documentation that recorded the final months of her life in the historical record.