Margaret Dalgleish, a married woman residing in the rural parish of Humbie in Haddington, found herself ensnared within the fraught landscape of 17th-century Scottish witchcraft trials. On September 13, 1678, her case was brought forth under the scrutiny of the legal system in Edinburgh, a central hub where such grim proceedings were often adjudicated. Margaret's trial, designated under the case identifier C/EGD/690, sheds light on a somewhat enigmatic figure, who managed to evade the clutches of the judicial process binding so many of her contemporaries.
The trial records reveal that Margaret did not appear in court to face the charges levied against her; instead, she was declared a fugitive — a term indicating her absence and non-compliance with the court's summons. Consequently, she was "put to the horn," a term used in Scottish legal parlance to denote someone officially proclaimed an outlaw. This declaration had significant ramifications, allowing for the invocation of legal and social penalties that included forfeiture of goods and property, and more critically, emblazoning her as beyond the law's protection. Margaret Dalgleish's evasion from appearance at what was potentially a perilous trial invites consideration of her fate and the calculated risks she may have undertaken to elude a society wedded to a fear of witchcraft, reflecting the intense societal pressures of the time.