In May 1642, the burgh of Culross in Fife became the setting for the judicial proceedings against Katherine Mitchell. Her case, documented under the reference C/EGD/2282, unfolded during a period when the local administration of justice was deeply engaged in the prosecution of witchcraft. Katherine’s ordeal was intricately linked to the broader legal activities in the region, as evidenced by the explicit connection between her trial and the records maintained by J. Brughe, a significant figure in the local judicial oversight of such cases.
The records for Katherine conclude with a confession, a document central to the formal processes of the seventeenth-century Scottish court. Following the conclusion of her trial (T/LA/34 and T/LA/35), the legal outcome was definitive. Katherine was executed later that same month, a fate that stands as a stark marker of the culmination of her documented legal journey within the early modern Scottish justice system.