In December 1626, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland turned toward a woman residing in the parish of Aboyne, identified in the official records only as the spouse of Johnne McConnochie. Her involvement in the legal proceedings of the period is formally cataloged under case number C/EGD/987, a designation that marks her entry into the rigorous and often perilous scrutiny of the Aberdeenshire courts. While the archival fragments preserve little of the specific allegations leveled against her, the administrative documentation—specifically trial record T/LA/456, dated 14 December 1626—confirms that she was formally brought to answer for charges of witchcraft.
For McConnochie’s spouse, this date represented a critical moment of confrontation with both secular and ecclesiastical authorities. In the social climate of 17th-century Aboyne, the accusation of witchcraft necessitated a legal response that moved through the prescribed channels of the Scottish justice system. Though the records remain silent regarding the final outcome of her trial or the specific nature of the testimony gathered against her, the survival of these documents ensures her place within the historical register of those ensnared by the intense prosecution of witchcraft that characterized the era.