Katherine Ross, Lady Fowlis

(4) Catherine, who was the second wife of Robert Munro of Foulis, and was tried for witchcraft;

History of the Munros of Fowlis: with genealogies of the principal families of the name to which are added those of Lexington and New England; Alexander Mackenzie; 1898; page 57

Robert Munro married, secondly, Catherine, eldest daughter of Alexander Ross, IX. of Balnagowan, by his first wife, Janet Sinclair, daughter of John, fifth Earl of Caithness, with issue — three sons and four daughters.
His 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.
One of the witches was a Tain woman named Marjory ....

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https://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getpe...

Two extraordinary trials took place, affording the most striking illustrations of the vices and superstitions of the time.

The family of Monro of Foulis, in Ross-shire, which still flourishes, was even then one of great antiquity, being represented by the seventeenth baron in succession. Holding possessions on the borders of the Highlands, it hovered between the characters of the Celtic chief and the Lowland gentleman. Ross of Balnagowan was a rich neighbour of similar character. The Lady Foulis of the year 1576—to use her common appellation—was Catherine Ross of the latter family, the second wife of her husband. She had a son named George; but the succession was barred to him by two sons of the previous marriage of her husband, Robert and Hector.

Her husband and his eldest son were dead when, at the above date, she and Hector, then representative of the family, were tried separately for sundry offences, Hector being, strange to say, the private pursuer against his step-mother, although he had immediately after to take his own place at the bar as a criminal. The dittay against the lady set forth a series of attempts at serious crime, partly prosecuted by natural means, and partly by superstitious practices. It appeared that she desired to put her eldest step-son out of the way, not, as might have been supposed, to favour the succession of her own offspring, but that her brother, George Ross of Balnagowan, might be free to marry Robert Mouro’s wife; to which end she also took steps for the removal of the wife of George Ross. It appears that she was not only prompted to, but assisted in her attempts by George Ross himself, although no judicial notice was taken of his criminality. Catherine Ross, described as daughter of Sir David Ross of Balnagowan, was also concerned. ...

References

• https://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getpe... cites
• [S87] Domestic Annals of Scotland, Robert Chalmers, (1874 http://www.electricscotland.com/history/domestic/).
• [S86] Balnagowan, J. Douglas Ross, (http://www.greatclanross.org/htext6.html), http://www.greatclanross.org/htext6.html.
• [S6] Stirnet Genealogy, Peter Barns-Graham, Munro02.