William Simpson, a resident of Broughton in Edinburgh during the late 17th century, found himself embroiled in the fraught climate of suspicion and accusation that characterized the Scottish witch trials. In 1691, William was accused of witchcraft, a charge that was both deeply serious and perilously difficult to navigate. The sources on William's case are regrettably sparse, but the fact of his accusation alone situates him within a broader historical context marked by fear of the supernatural and social discord.
The documentation of his case suggests there was a reliance on secondary references, though the project did not verify these through Larner's record, a critical source on the era's witch trials. This could point to both the challenges historians face in piecing together individual narratives and the complexities surrounding the collection of evidence in such cases. William's experience would have been profoundly colored by the prevailing attitudes of the time, in which accusations of witchcraft could serve to scapegoat individuals for unexplained happenings or as a means to settle personal vendettas. While the specific allegations against William are not detailed in the historical records we have, his case is an example of the broader societal anxieties that manifested in accusations of witchcraft during this tumultuous period in Scotland’s history.