In the autumn of 1649, Katherine Hendersoun, a resident of Berwick, found herself caught within the mechanisms of the Scottish legal system as the subject of a formal witchcraft inquiry. On September 14, 1649, Katherine was formally entered into the judicial record under case reference C/EGD/1644, a period marked by a surge in such prosecutions across the Scottish Borders. This registration initiated the transition from local suspicion to the state-sanctioned scrutiny of the court, subjecting her to the rigorous and often perilous procedures established for those accused of the crime of malefice.
Following the initial registration of her case, the legal process concerning Katherine advanced toward a formal trial, documented under record T/LA/1979. Within the context of the seventeenth-century Scottish judiciary, this step necessitated the gathering of testimonies and the construction of a formal indictment. While the specific nature of the allegations brought against Katherine remains embedded within the technicalities of these judicial archives, the existence of these records confirms her placement at the intersection of religious anxiety and civil authority that defined the era’s approach to supernatural transgression.