On June 26, 1563, Agnes Mullikine, a resident of Dunfermline in Fife, appeared before the authorities in Edinburgh to face charges of witchcraft. Her case, documented under reference C/EGD/27, serves as a poignant illustration of the judicial climate during the earliest years of the post-Reformation witch-hunting period in Scotland. Agnes’s trial took place at a time when the legal machinery concerning such accusations was beginning to centralize, with historian Robert Pitcairn noting the significance of this proceeding as a central trial within the records of the era.
Following the examination of the evidence presented against her during the trial (T/LA/1819), the court reached a verdict of guilty. However, Agnes avoided the capital punishment often associated with such convictions in the early modern period. Instead, the sentence pronounced upon her was that of banishment. By compelling Agnes to depart from her home and social circles, the court effectively removed her from the Dunfermline community, concluding a case that remains a notable entry in the archival history of sixteenth-century Scottish witchcraft prosecutions.