Jonet Smaillie was an indweller of the burgh of Ayr, a woman whose life was marked by repeated friction with the religious authorities of her community. Records indicate that she was a figure of local controversy as early as 1613 and 1615, when she appeared before the kirk session to answer for charges of slander and blasphemy. By 1622, these ongoing tensions resulted in her formal banishment from the burgh. Despite this previous expulsion, Jonet remained a presence in the legal records of the region, and her history of discord culminated in the significant proceedings of May 1650.
When Jonet faced trial in 1650, she was confronted with a substantial list of nineteen points of dittay. Having provided a confession as early as March 1630, she ultimately admitted to the accusations brought against her during this later trial. The court’s sentence was rigorous: she was to be scourged through the town of Ayr and branded upon the cheek before being permanently banished. Her case remains a documented instance of the intersection between personal reputation, kirk discipline, and the judicial processes that defined the experience of those accused of witchcraft in mid-seventeenth-century Scotland.