In May 1662, Jonet Hynman, a resident of Inverkip in Renfrew, became the subject of intense judicial scrutiny as the wave of witch-hunting that swept across the Scottish Lowlands reached her parish. The legal proceedings initiated against her under case number C/EGD/1494 were swift; by the 7th of May, the court had formally convened to address the charges brought against her. In the weeks preceding her trial, Jonet had been subjected to the rigorous interrogation processes characteristic of the era, resulting in a recorded confession dated May 1662.
While the specific nature of the evidence presented against Jonet in the subsequent trial (T/JO/921) remains absent from the archival record, the existence of a formal confession indicates that the proceedings followed the established procedural norms of the seventeenth-century Scottish justice system. During this period, the legal framework relied heavily upon the testimony obtained during examination, which often formed the central pillar of the prosecution’s case. Despite the gravity of the trial, no further descriptive notes survive, leaving Jonet’s final circumstances preserved only within these sparse administrative markers of the Renfrew judiciary.