In the early months of 1635, Anna Tait found herself at the center of a storm that swept through Haddington and surrounding regions with the same intensity that had marked the Scottish witch hunts in the years prior. Anna, a woman with ties to the middling socio-economic class, resided in Haddington where her husband worked as a miller – a respectable if modest occupation. Little is known about her life prior to her accusation, other than her troubled matrimonial past, which she herself implicated in her confession: she admitted to killing her first husband back in England. This confession, darkly intriguing, would have weighed heavily on the perception of her character during her trial.
It was in this charged atmosphere of fear and superstition that Anna found herself accused and subsequently brought to trial on the 6th of January, 1635. The records reveal a turbulent mental state; Anna had attempted to take her own life three times, a detail that, during the period’s climate of suspicion, might have been seen as an indication of guilt or possession. Her trial was noted within the 'Witchcraft Cases from the Register of Commissions of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1630-42', and although discrepancies exist in the archival dates, it is clear that her trial commission was issued at the end of 1634, just preceding the January trial. Despite these inconsistencies, the outcome was unambiguous: Anna was found guilty.
The sentence handed down was grimly customary for those convicted of witchcraft—strangulation followed by burning at the stake, a method intended not only to punish but to serve as a public spectacle, reinforcing the societally-determined moral order against witchcraft. Before her execution, it is documented that Anna was subjected to confinement in stocks, a form of torture intended to extract confession. Such confessions were vital in securing convictions, often seen as incontrovertible evidence by the standards of the time. Anna Tait’s story, preserved in the narrow confines of historical record, reflects the fraught complexities and desperate trials faced by those accused of witchcraft, offering a window into the fears and judicial practices of early modern Scotland.