In August 1643, a thirty-nine-year-old married woman named Agnes Stoddart appeared before the authorities in Perth to face charges of witchcraft. The legal proceedings against her were extensive and personal; she was not accused in isolation, but rather as part of a wider investigation that targeted her immediate household, including her husband and their daughter. Because the historical records indicate that her daughter had already surpassed the age of fourteen at the time, the prosecution of the family suggests a concentrated effort by the local kirk session and judicial authorities to dismantle what was perceived as a familial network of illicit practice within the parishes of Aberdalgie and Dupplin.
The trajectory of Agnes’s case was swift and conclusive. Following the initial accusation, the judicial process culminated in a trial held in Perth on the 30th of August 1643. The court found Agnes guilty of the charges brought against her, leading to the imposition of a capital sentence. On the 30th of November 1643, the legal records confirm that the sentence was carried out, and Agnes was executed. Her case remains documented under the reference C/EGD/1290, serving as a stark illustration of the judicial climate in mid-seventeenth-century Scotland, where allegations of witchcraft could extend to entire families and result in the finality of state-sanctioned execution.