In September 1649, Margaret Hermiston, a resident of Borthwick in Edinburgh, was drawn into the judicial machinery that gripped Scotland during the mid-seventeenth century. Her involvement in the legal proceedings of the time is evidenced by a brief entry dated September 27, 1649, which places her alongside three other individuals, suggesting a collective judicial process rather than an isolated examination. While administrative records occasionally leave room for ambiguity—notably in the suggestion that she may have been known as Marjorie—the gravity of the situation was solidified by the formal recording of a confession earlier that same month.
The historical trail for Margaret ends abruptly following this initial deposition. Despite the existence of a specific case file (C/JO/2804) and a corresponding trial record (T/JO/356), the extant documents offer no further details regarding the specific nature of the allegations brought against her or the final outcome of the proceedings. Consequently, while the timeline of September 1649 marks the definitive intersection of her life with the records of the Scottish witch trials, the specific circumstances that led Margaret to that moment remain unrecorded by history.