On November 24, 1679, legal proceedings were initiated against Margaret Hammilton, a widow residing in the coastal town of Bo'ness, located within the shire of Linlithgow. Recorded under case reference C/LA/3075, the documentation provides a formal account of the accusations leveled against her during a period when the Scottish justice system was intensifying its scrutiny of those suspected of maleficium. As a widow, Margaret occupied a precarious social position, often leaving women in seventeenth-century Scotland more vulnerable to communal suspicion and the subsequent reach of the kirk sessions and local magistrates.
Following the initial registration of the case, Margaret was brought to trial under the judicial record T/LA/1466. While the extant records are brief, they delineate the formal progression of a process that was governed by the statutes of the time. The transition from the filing of the case to the courtroom reflects the structured, albeit severe, administrative rigor applied to witchcraft allegations in late seventeenth-century Linlithgow, where the testimony and legal filings served as the primary instruments in determining the fate of those brought before the court.