The first sign of a problem followed swiftly after, when jealous members of the Parish Council had the young Julieanne indicted for heresy, to be tried at the quarterly assize in that village. The magistrate, Sir Charles Gerard, later Earl of Macclesfield was later involved in the sessions that followed Argyll’s Rebellion. Although the simple credulity of post Commonwealth Scots folk might once have thought nothing of burning witches at the stake, it had been over forty years since anyone had been tried for ‘witchcraft’, north or south of the border. As had been the practice in more notorious sessions, there was no shortage of grudging neighbours who were prepared to testify against Julieanne. The main evidence, however, was not verbally given, but presented in the form of a pocket book that had been found on her person. It was unusual for any woman to be able to read at the end of the seventeenth century, let alone carry about with her a book of astrological and numerological tables. Yet it was upon this very evidence that Julieanne’s fate rested. The pocket book is now lost, but an extract was published in Francis Barlow’s ‘the Magus’ back in 1793;

To reckon a personall number, take in turne eache letter and add to eache the same, so that a rising count is gyven as a name is accounted".

It was observed by the assize that the very number that Julieanne had drawn in the lottery had been so calculated. Prior to modern dictionaries, the letters "I" and "J" were synonymous, as were "U" and "V". The ten numbers that she selected for her number were

9  29  40  49  54  55  68  81   86  98

As a result of this discovery, the lottery was duly suspended and Julieanne was sentanced to death. In her defence she had stated that the numbers had been given her ‘by an angell’ although this was soon dismissed by the Magistrate. The sentence of being burnt to death was commuted to that of ‘Drowning by Three Tides’. Since the River Carron was not of tidal influence, the condemned girl was taken to the Solway, where earlier executions had been successfully carried out, back in the days of witchfinding.

Tied to a stake, Julieanne McCambridge bore her destiny with an unmatched courage. Contemporary accounts say that ‘her raven black hair blew in the tempest, whilst blood issued from her ivory white skin where she had been bound with long rusted chains’. As at the trial, she was dressed completely in black, with a fur collar about her neck. From the Solway her resounding voice echoed psalms, sung, as was the practice, to the tunes of old Scottish lays. The woman who had been tried as ‘the Witch of Larbert’ gradually materialised into ‘the Martyr of the Solway’. Julieanne declared that she would never rest until her name had been cleared and that her enemies had been avenged. It is not known how long it was before she expired, or where her body was disposed of. The custom in Scotland was to burn the bodies of witches, although in later years their remains were often interred in unmarked pits, located in unconsecrated ground.