In the autumn of 1649, a woman named Janet Lyes was formally brought before the judicial authorities to answer to charges of witchcraft. While her residence was recorded as Berwick, historical research suggests that she may have originally hailed from the town of Lauder. Her case, documented under the reference C/EGD/1978, reached a pivotal moment on October 2nd of that year, marking a point of intersection between the personal life of the accused and the legal machinery of the seventeenth-century Scottish state.
The judicial process surrounding Janet followed the formal administrative protocols of the era, culminating in a trial recorded under the reference T/LA/1998. Within these records, the transition from accusation to formal legal proceedings highlights the gravity with which the local courts viewed such allegations during this period. Janet remains defined in the archive by these specific dates and administrative markers, serving as a documented participant in the complex legal landscape that characterized the mid-seventeenth-century witch trials.