In July 1629, Isobel Bayne, a fifty-year-old widow residing in Caithness, found herself drawn into the machinery of the Scottish legal system. Her case, documented under reference C/EGD/668, marked the beginning of a formal transition from her northern home to the capital, as her legal proceedings were ultimately directed toward Edinburgh. While the archival records provide limited insight into the specific grievances brought against her, they situate Isobel within a network of familial ties, noting the presence of her husband’s nephew, a grown man who remained connected to her during this period of legal scrutiny.
The trial, recorded under reference T/LA/733, formalised the transition of her case from a local concern in Caithness to the seat of national jurisdiction. For a woman of her standing and age, the movement of her legal proceedings to Edinburgh suggests the gravity with which the authorities regarded the accusations leveled against her. Despite the brevity of the surviving documentation, the record preserves the essential contours of her situation: a widow caught in the intersection of seventeenth-century social expectations and the rigorous legal processes characteristic of the era’s pursuit of witchcraft.