In the spring of 1699, Agnes Supp, a married woman of lower socioeconomic status living in the parish of Kilmacolm, found her life upended by accusations rooted in the testimony of two young women. Agnes, who had been employed as a servant to a local maltman, allegedly lost her position after being accused of tormenting Margaret Laird. These claims were formalised during a series of hearings in April 1699, where Laird, while in Paisley, and Margaret Murdoch, while in Govan, both claimed to be suffering under the influence of witchcraft. During these fits, the two women denounced a number of individuals, including Agnes, prompting witnesses to provide testimony regarding the girls’ condition and their subsequent accusations.
The legal proceedings that followed were protracted and marked by uncertainty. While a trial was originally scheduled to take place in Glasgow in May 1699, the records indicate that these proceedings did not occur as planned. The case eventually moved to the High Court in Edinburgh, where, on March 12, 1700, the diet was deserted. Following this judicial decision, Agnes was released, marking the end of a process that had seen her transition from a domestic servant to a figure entangled in the complex and often volatile legal landscape of late seventeenth-century Scottish witchcraft accusations.