On February 14, 1662, the legal machinery of seventeenth-century Scotland turned toward Jonat McNeill, a resident of Bute. Recorded alternatively in the contemporary documents as NcNeill, her case (C/EGD/1535) emerged during a period of heightened judicial activity regarding charges of witchcraft. The surviving archival evidence marks her transition from an inhabitant of the island to a subject of the state’s formal inquisitorial process, reflecting the administrative rigor applied to such accusations during this era.
Following the initial registration of her case, Jonat was brought before the court under the trial reference T/JO/1894. While the records provide a precise temporal and geographical framework for these proceedings, they offer a stark account of the institutional response to her presence in the judicial system. As a woman caught within the complex social and legal tensions of the mid-1600s, Jonat remains a figure defined by these specific archival entries, which serve as the primary testament to her encounter with the authorities on Bute.