On June 16, 1636, the legal machinery of seventeenth-century Scotland turned its focus toward Agnes Bathcut, a resident of the burgh of Haddington. Her encounter with the judicial system is preserved within the archives of the Justiciary Court under case file C/LA/3335. While the surviving records are brief, they mark the formal entry of Agnes into a process that was increasingly common during this period, as local authorities and ecclesiastical bodies sought to address allegations of maleficium and perceived departures from godly order.
Following the initiation of these proceedings, the legal trajectory for Agnes proceeded to the trial stage, documented under reference T/LA/2125. As with many individuals processed during the height of the witch trials between 1563 and 1736, her case reflects the intersection of Haddington’s local administrative oversight and the broader jurisdictional powers of the Scottish courts. The documentation concerning Agnes remains a significant, albeit concise, testament to the formal mechanisms employed by the state in the mid-1630s to adjudicate accusations of witchcraft.