In the summer of 1662, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland reached into the parish of Inverkip, Renfrew, to ensnare Jonet Holm. On the first of August, her name was formally entered into the legal registers under case file C/EGD/1685, marking the commencement of proceedings against her. At this time, the surrounding Lowlands were experiencing a significant intensification of witch-hunting activities, a period characterized by heightened anxieties and the mobilization of local kirk sessions and civil authorities in the pursuit of those suspected of supernatural malice.
Following her initial indictment, Jonet was committed to the judicial process recorded as T/JO/1011. While the archival records preserve the administrative fact of her trial, the specific details—the nature of the testimonies, the identities of the accusers, and the eventual verdict—remain absent from the surviving documentation. Consequently, Jonet exists in the historical record as a stark reminder of the fragmented nature of 17th-century legal archives, where the bureaucratic framework of the trial remains, but the lived experience of the individual has been lost to time.