In the summer of 1649, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland turned its attention toward Alexander Scott, a married weaver residing in the parish of Corstorphine, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. As recorded in the legal documentation identified under case reference C/JO/3097, Alexander was brought before the authorities on July 22, 1649. His trial, cataloged as T/JO/1522, placed him within the broader administrative context of the witch trials that swept across the Scottish lowlands during this period of significant social and religious turbulence.
As a man of the lower socioeconomic strata, Alexander’s life as a weaver in Corstorphine would have been deeply integrated into the local community structure, yet the formal proceedings against him marked a definitive rupture from that daily existence. The surviving records of the trial provide a stark administrative account of his journey through the seventeenth-century court system. While the documentation focuses primarily on the procedural aspects of his appearance, the case of Alexander stands as a representative example of the legal scrutiny faced by ordinary tradesmen during these years, capturing a moment where the private life of a village weaver became a matter of public record and judicial inquiry.