Clan Ross is a Highland Scottish clan. The original chiefs of the clan were the original Earls of Ross.
Isobel Gowdie was a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft at Auldearn near Nairn during 1662. Scant information is available about her age or life and, although she was probably executed in line with the usual practice, it is uncertain whether this was the case or if she was allowed to return to the obscurity of her former life as a cottar’s wife. Her detailed testimony, apparently achieved without the use of violent torture, provides one of the most comprehensive insights into European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts.
Clan Mackenzie is a Scottish clan, traditionally associated with Kintail and lands in Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Traditional genealogies trace the ancestors of the Mackenzie chiefs to the 12th-century. However, the earliest Mackenzie chief recorded by contemporary evidence is Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail who died some time after 1471. Traditionally, during the Wars of Scottish Independence, the Mackenzies supported Robert the Bruce, but feuded with the Earls of Ross in the latter part of the 14th-century. During the 15th and 16th-centuries the Mackenzies feuded with the neighboring clans of Munro and MacDonald. In the 17th-century the Mackenzie chief was made Earl of Seaforth in the peerage of Scotland. During the Scottish Civil War of the 17th-century the Mackenzies largely supported the Royalists. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 the chief and clan of Mackenzie supported the Jacobite cause. However, during the Jacobite rising of 1745 the clan was divided with the chief, Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, supporting the British-Hanoverian Government and his relative, George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, supporting the Jacobites.
Clan Chisholm is a Highland Scottish clan.
The Battle of Bealach nam Broig was a battle fought between Scottish clans from the lands of north-west Ross, against north-eastern clans of Ross who supported the Earl of Ross. The actual date of the battle is debated, it probably occurred in 1452 but the Conflicts of the Clans suggests a date as early as 1299.
The Battle of Achnashellach was a Scottish clan battle said to have taken place in the year 1505, in the Scottish Highlands at Achnashellach. It was fought by the Clan Cameron against the Clan Mackay and the Clan Munro.
Colin Mackenzie of Kintail, nicknamed “Cam”, was a Highland chief of the Scottish clan Mackenzie who greatly increased his ancestral estates through royal favour and a career of vigorous self-aggrandisement.
The Stand-off at the Ford of Arkaig occurred in September 1665 at Achnacarry, about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Fort William, Scotland. The Chattan Confederation led by the Clan Mackintosh assembled an army to challenge Clan Cameron in a 360-year-old dispute over the lands around Loch Arkaig. After a week of stalemate, the long-running feud was ended by a deal in which the Camerons bought the land from the Mackintoshes.
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (1636/1638–1691) was a Scottish lawyer, Lord Advocate, essayist and legal writer.
Hector Munro, 17th Baron of Foulis, also known as the master of Foulis, was chief of the Highland, Scottish clan, Clan Munro. He is the 10th chief of Clan Munro who can be proved by contemporary evidence. He was seated at Foulis Castle.
Witch trials in early modern Scotland were the judicial proceedings in Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century concerned with crimes of witchcraft, part of a series of witch trials in Early Modern Europe. In the late middle age there were a handful of prosecutions for harm done through witchcraft, but the passing of the Witchcraft Act 1563 made witchcraft, or consulting with witches, capital crimes. The first major series of trials under the new act were the North Berwick witch trials, beginning in 1589, in which King James VI played a major part as "victim" and investigator. He became interested in witchcraft and published a defence of witch-hunting in the Daemonologie in 1597, but he appears to have become increasingly sceptical and eventually took steps to limit prosecutions.
The great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50 was a series of witch trials in Scotland. It is one of five major hunts identified in early modern Scotland and it probably saw the most executions in a single year.
The 1594 trial of alleged witch Allison Balfour is one of the most frequently cited Scottish witchcraft cases. Balfour lived on the Orkney Mainland of Scotland in an area called Stenness. Although at that time Orkney was officially subject to Norwegian law, it had been ruled by Scottish earls since 1468, and thus effectively fell under Scotland's legal jurisdiction, and in particular the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563, which had made a conviction for witchcraft punishable by death.
Witchcraft in Orkney possibly has its roots in the settlement of Norsemen on the archipelago from the eighth century onwards. Until the early modern period magical powers were accepted as part of the general lifestyle, but witch-hunts began on the mainland of Scotland in about 1550, and the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft or consultation with witches a crime punishable by death. One of the first Orcadians tried and executed for witchcraft was Allison Balfour, in 1594. Balfour, her elderly husband and two young children, were subjected to severe torture for two days to elicit a confession from her.
Elspeth Reoch was an alleged Scottish witch. She was born in Caithness but as a child spent time with relatives on an island in Lochaber prior to travelling to the mainland of Orkney. At that time the Orkney archipelago was under the legal jurisdiction of Scotland which, with the implementation of the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563, made witchcraft a capital offence, therefore punishable by death.
Margaret Aitken, known as the great witch of Balwearie was an important figure in the great Scottish witchcraft panic of 1597 as her actions effectively led to an end of that series of witch trials. After being accused of witchcraft Aitken confessed but then identified hundreds of women as other witches to save her own life. She was exposed as a fraud a few months later and was burnt at the stake.
The Bute witches were six Scottish women accused of witchcraft and interrogated in the parish of Rothesay on Bute during the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62. The Privy Council granted a Commission of Justiciary for a local trial to be held and four of the women – believed by historians to be Margaret McLevin, Margaret McWilliam, Janet Morrison and Isobell McNicoll – were executed in 1662; a fifth may have died while incarcerated. One woman, Jonet NcNicoll, escaped from prison before she could be executed but when she returned to the island in 1673 the sentence was implemented.
Beatrix Leslie was a Scottish midwife executed for witchcraft. In 1661 she was accused of causing the collapse of a coal pit through witchcraft. Little is known about her life before that, although there are reported disputes with neighbours that allude to a quarrelsome attitude.
Maud Galt was a lesbian accused of witchcraft in 17th century Kilbarchan, Scotland.
