In the early 17th century, amidst the fraught and fevered atmosphere of the Scottish witch hunts, Bartie Patersoune, a 61-year-old tasker from Newbattle near Edinburgh, found himself at the center of a dire accusation of witchcraft. As a tasker, Bartie was engaged in piecework, an occupation characteristic of the lower socioeconomic strata. Though historical records vary slightly, with some descriptions misidentifying him as a tailor, it has been clarified that his means of livelihood involved labor-intensive tasks rather than the craft of tailoring. Bartie's late encounter with the witch trials occurred during a period when societal and judicial fears of witchcraft had intensified, leading to numerous accusations rooted in superstition and societal anxieties.
Bartie's trial took place at Edinburgh on December 18, 1607. The records reveal that prior to his trial, he had been subject to a series of confessions. These confessions, recorded on several dates from September through December of the same year, often occurred under immense pressure, potentially involving coercive methods of investigation common at the time. Despite the lack of available details describing the content of these confessions, their frequency indicates a protracted and likely agonizing process leading up to his trial. On the day of his sentencing, the court found Bartie guilty of witchcraft, culminating in a sentence of execution by strangulation followed by burning at Castle Hill— a grim fate that mirrored the brutal methods of punishment employed during this era to those condemned as witches. The case of Bartie Patersoune stands as a poignant reflection of the perilous and often tragic nature of the Scottish witch trials.