In April 1568, Elizabeth Hunter, a woman of middling socioeconomic status residing in the parish of Arbroath and St Vigeans in Forfar, found herself at the centre of a legal proceeding regarding allegations of witchcraft. As the wife of a local burgess, Elizabeth occupied a position of social visibility within her community, a standing that contrasted sharply with the gravity of the accusations brought against her. The records (C/LA/3370) confirm that her case was processed within the formal mechanisms of the Scottish judicial system during a period when concerns regarding maleficium were increasingly becoming a matter of state and ecclesiastical scrutiny.
The documentation surrounding Elizabeth’s trial (T/LA/2238) situates her within the broader context of the Scottish witch trials, which intensified following the 1563 Witchcraft Act. While the surviving records are concise, they provide a clear administrative trail of her interaction with the law. By tracking her case from the initial accusation through to the trial process, the records highlight how individuals of established domestic standing were not immune to the anxieties of the era, reflecting the complex intersection of local governance, marriage, and criminal justice in sixteenth-century Forfar.