In late 1648, the community of Kelso in Roxburgh became the setting for a series of legal proceedings directed against Janet Fairlie, a married woman residing within the parish. The formal investigation into Janet’s conduct began on November 8, when the local Kirk session first recorded a denunciation against her. This initial inquiry was followed three weeks later, on November 28, by a formal investigation overseen by the Presbytery, marking the escalation of the case through the ecclesiastical judicial structures of the period.
The archival trail regarding Janet concludes with the legal developments of 1649. While the Kirk session minutes later document the identification of twelve other women who faced subsequent investigation, the existing records for Janet herself remain focused on her own trial process (T/JO/1640) and the preliminary denunciations. Although these external inquiries involving other parishioners followed the proceedings against her, the records do not confirm that Janet provided these names herself, leaving the internal mechanics of her testimony and the eventual outcome of her trial as matters contained strictly within the surviving documentation of the 1649 court session.