The judicial proceedings involving Margaret Hastie took place in the spring of 1692, a period during which the legal machinery of late seventeenth-century Scotland was deeply engaged in the prosecution of witchcraft. Residing in the parish of Newbattle, located in the vicinity of Edinburgh, Margaret was brought before the authorities on 19 May 1692. Her case, documented under the reference C/JO/2837, reflects the bureaucratic structure of the Scottish Justiciary, which formalized the accusations brought against individuals throughout the Lowlands during this era of intensive religious and social anxiety.
Despite the formal recording of her case, the surviving historical archive provides remarkably little information regarding the specific charges leveled against Margaret or the subsequent outcome of her legal ordeal. The trial records, designated as T/JO/593, contain no further details concerning the proceedings, leaving the narrative of her experience as a fragment of the broader judicial records of the time. Consequently, while Margaret remains a documented figure within the registers of the Scottish witch trials, the particulars of her defense, her testimony, and the final resolution of her case remain lost to the historical silence that envelops many such individuals from the period.