In the summer of 1590, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland reached into the region of Ross to focus its attention upon the wife of John Bane. Her formal designation in the archival record—identified simply by her marital status and her husband’s name—reflects the common social anonymity often imposed upon women in the legal documentation of the period. On July 22, 1590, she was entered into the historical record under case number C/EGD/42, marking the beginning of a process that would lead to her appearance before the court.
The documentation regarding this case, indexed as T/LA/905, chronicles the progression of the trial that followed. While the archives capture the procedural reality of the proceedings against the wife of John Bane, they also preserve the gravity of the legal mechanisms active in the late sixteenth century. By recording her name and the specific timeline of her case, these fragments serve as a testament to the experience of a Ross resident whose life became inextricably linked to the extensive and rigorous witch-trial statutes that defined this volatile era of Scottish history.