Local tradition has it that Mary, Queen of Scots, once visited Beauly and had exclaimed: "Ç'est un beau lieu", whereby came the name Beauly. Queen Mary, in 1563, hunted and took her summer journeys in the west and southwest of Scotland; but her brother James, the new Earl of Moray, came north to Inverness late in the autumn, with his two brothers, to hold courts and consolidate his power, and there first put into execution the new Act against witchcraft, sorcery, and necromancy, by burning two old women as witches.