In June 1622, the judicial machinery of the Scottish Kirk and state turned its attention toward Katherine Rannald, a 50-year-old married woman residing in the parish of Kirkliston, Linlithgow. Recorded under case number C/EGD/912, Katherine was brought before the authorities at a time when the legal prosecution of witchcraft was a frequent occurrence within the burghs and shires of the Lowlands. Her arrest initiated a formal process of inquiry, documented through the collection of testimonies and evidence required by the rigorous legal standards of the early seventeenth-century Scottish courts.
The trial, indexed as T/LA/354, proceeded in the royal burgh of Linlithgow, where the mechanisms of the local assize were set in motion. Pre-trial investigations involved a total of five witnesses—two men and three women—whose statements formed the basis of the prosecution’s case against Katherine. While the historical record confirms that these individuals were identified during the initial stages of the inquiry, the documentation remains ambiguous regarding whether all five were ultimately called to testify in person during the formal trial proceedings. Despite the surviving records of her case file and trial details, the final judicial outcome for Katherine remains absent from the archival summary.