In the winter of 1629, the burgh of Lanark became the site of a legal proceeding involving a resident named Grissell Boill. On the 3rd of December, the administrative machinery of the Scottish justice system formally initiated a case against her, recorded under the reference C/EGD/1159. This registration marked the beginning of a process that would ultimately bring Grissell before the local authorities to answer for allegations of witchcraft, a charge that carried grave implications under the statutes of the period.
Following the initial registration of the case, Grissell was subjected to a trial documented under the reference T/LA/649. While the brevity of the surviving records limits our understanding of the specific grievances brought against her, the existence of these official documents confirms that she was processed through the established judicial frameworks of the time. Through these remnants of the Lanark court records, the historical memory of Grissell remains preserved as one of the many individuals whose lives were intersected by the intense legal scrutiny of the early seventeenth century.