ROSS, Catherine ¹

   Other names for Catherine were ROSS, Katharine ² and ROSS, Katherine Lady Fowlis.²

   User ID: L493.

  General Notes:

"His (Robert 'Mor' Munro's) second wife, 'Katherine Ross, Lady Fowlis,' as she is designated in the 'Dittay,' survived Baron Robert for several years. She was implicated, with her stepson, Hector the seventeenth Baron, in an infamous attempt at poisoning through sorcery and incantation. Though her action in the matter is ignored in the family annals, it is here given as related in the Justiciary Records, printed in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i., part ii., pages 191-202. The trial is also noticed in the preface to Law's Memorials, though in less detail, and with certain errors in some of the particulars given.

The purpose of the poisoning and 'witchcraft,' and of the compact into which the Lady of Fowlis entered with a crew of miscreants in 1576 and 1577, was to remove Marjory Campbell, the young wife of her brother, George Ross, X. of Balnagowan, and daughter of Sir John Campbell, IX. of Cawdor, that he might marry the wife of young Fowlis, and to accomplish this effectually it was necessary to destroy her stepson Robert Munro, then 'apparand of Fowlis,' eldest son and heir of Robert Mor. [....]

Lady Fowlis was not tried until the 22nd of July, 1590, being then 'dilatit of certain crymes of witchcraft,' at the instance of the King's Advocate, David Macgill of Cranston-Riddell, and Hector Munro of Fowlis. The verdict of the Assize, however, pronounced her 'to be innocent, and quit of the haill poynts of the dittay,' and she was acquitted accordingly."

from History of the Munros of Fowlis ¹

Catherine married Robert 'Mor' MUNRO 15th Baron of Foulis, son of Robert MUNRO 14th Baron of Foulis and Margaret DUNBAR.¹ (Robert 'Mor' MUNRO 15th Baron of Foulis was born about 1534, died on 4 November 1588 in Foulis Castle, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland and was buried in 1588 in Kiltearn Churchyard, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland ¹.)

  Marriage Notes:

"Robert (Munro) married, secondly, Catherine, eldest daughter of Alexander Ross, IX. of Balnagowan, by his first wife, Janet Sinclair, daughter of John, fifth (in fact 3rd) Earl of Caithness, with issue - three sons and four daughters."

from History of the Munros of Fowlis ¹