In the summer of 1629, the legal authorities in the burgh of Haddington turned their attention to Margaret Hamiltoun, an inhabitant of the town. Her involvement with the judicial system is documented in the records of the Privy Council, which issued a commission regarding her case. While the specific nature of the allegations brought against her remains unelaborated in the surviving paperwork, the gravity with which the state treated the proceedings reflects the prevailing legal and theological climate of early modern Scotland, where such matters were handled with formal, bureaucratic rigour.
Following the proceedings in Haddington, the court reached a verdict of guilty. As a consequence of this judgment, Margaret was sentenced to death. According to the trial notes associated with case file T/LA/735, the sentence was carried out, and she was executed by burning. The brevity of these administrative records marks the final chapter of her life, documenting a process that transitioned from a formal commission to the ultimate penal application permitted under the Scottish statutes of the period.