In the summer of 1643, Annabell Hall, a resident of Carrington in Edinburgh, was drawn into the rigorous legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials. On July 20, 1643, formal proceedings were initiated against her under the reference number C/JO/2798. While the surviving documentation for her case remains sparse, the records indicate that the legal process moved with relative speed, reflecting the period's intense focus on identifying and prosecuting those suspected of maleficium or diabolical pacts.
By that same month, Annabell had provided a formal confession to the authorities, as noted in the records dated July 1643. Although the specific nature of the testimony she provided or the accusations leveled against her have been lost to time—with the trial notes (T/JO/346) containing no further elaboration—the existence of this confession confirms her direct involvement in the judicial process of the mid-seventeenth century. Her case remains one of many instances from the period where the interaction between the accused and the ecclesiastical and secular courts leaves behind only the stark outlines of an official record.