In the spring of 1629, Jean Cleilland, a woman of middling status residing at Corhous mill in Lanark, found herself at the centre of legal proceedings concerning allegations of witchcraft. As the wife or proprietor associated with the milling operations at Corhous, Jean occupied a position of local prominence, yet this standing did not shield her from the rigorous scrutiny of the Scottish judicial system. On 15 April 1629, the formal documentation of her case began, marking the start of a process that would involve multiple trial records, specifically registered under the designations T/JO/2169 and T/LA/712.
The records for Jean depict the intersection of local community strife and the formal mechanisms of the early modern court. As a figure of some local significance at the mill, her life was subject to the intense social pressures and suspicions characteristic of the period. Through the surviving documentation of her case (C/EGD/1099), we observe the transition of these suspicions into the established legal channels of the time. The subsequent trials recorded in Lanark reflect the gravity with which the authorities approached such accusations, documenting the sequence of events that defined Jean’s entanglement with the law during these volatile years.