In the late spring of 1661, the village of Bolton in Haddington became the focus of a legal investigation involving Jonet Baigbie. On the 29th of May, Jonet provided a formal confession to the authorities, a pivotal event that preceded her official appearance in the court records two days later on the 31st of May. The charge brought against her was specific and severe: participation in a meeting of witches, a convening of individuals that the legal framework of the time viewed as a grave transgression against both the church and the state.
The judicial proceedings surrounding Jonet were not isolated, but were instead deeply interconnected with a wider circle of women within the region. Her name appears as a consistent associate in the testimonies and trials of several other local women, including Bessie Todrig, Bessie Dawsoun, Anna Kemp, Margaret Ker, Issobell Smith, Marion Wood, Margaret Maislet, and Jeane Deanes. Each of these women identified Jonet as an accomplice in their respective legal cases. While the trial notes for the subsequent proceedings (T/JO/1025 and T/JO/1030) remain silent on the minute particulars of her defense or final sentence, the surviving documentation underscores the communal and collaborative nature of the witchcraft accusations that swept through Haddington during this period.