On 30 March 1679, the judicial authorities in Edinburgh recorded the case of Janet Douglas, a woman residing in the Canongate. The surviving records, filed under reference C/EGD/1768, document her involvement in the legal mechanisms of the period regarding an accusation of witchcraft. During this era, the Canongate functioned as a distinct burgh adjacent to the capital, and the legal proceedings initiated against Janet reflect the rigorous, often opaque, nature of the seventeenth-century Scottish criminal justice system.
The subsequent trial, noted in document T/JO/613, concluded with a sentence of banishment. While the specific testimony, evidence, or underlying grievances that precipitated the charges remain absent from the extant archives, the outcome indicates a formal resolution by the court. By mandating her exile, the authorities effectively removed Janet from the community of the Canongate, a common punitive measure employed by the Scottish courts to address individuals deemed incompatible with the social or spiritual order of the time.