In the year 1613, the ecclesiastical and legal authorities within the presbytery of Paisley turned their attention to the parish of Killalan, where a resident named George Semple became the subject of a formal inquiry. The records concerning his case, cataloged under the reference C/EGD/2203, document a moment of significant communal and judicial intervention during a period when the prosecution of witchcraft was gaining momentum across the Scottish Lowlands.
As a male accused in an era where the majority of witchcraft defendants were women, George occupied a distinct space within the legal proceedings of the time. While the specific nature of the allegations brought against him remains tied to the internal logic of the early seventeenth-century kirk and court systems, his case serves as a focused point of historical inquiry into the reach of the presbytery of Paisley. Though the details of his trial were documented, George’s experience remains a part of the broader, complex landscape of early modern Scottish social control and the rigorous theological examinations that defined the era.