On 22 March 1597, in the burgh of Aberdeen, Violat Leyis faced formal proceedings regarding charges of witchcraft. The legal record of this case is intricately linked to her immediate family, as Violat was tried alongside her husband and three of their daughters. Their involvement was not singular; rather, she was identified as an accomplice by others facing similar scrutiny, specifically Johnnet Wischert and Thomas Leyis. The interconnected nature of these accusations reflects the communal patterns often observed in late sixteenth-century Scottish witch trials, where individuals were frequently drawn into the judicial process through the naming of kin and neighbors.
The outcome of the trial for the Leyis family was nuanced, resulting in what the records term a verdict of "half guilty." While the daughters were formally absolved of the primary accusations of witchcraft, the court maintained that the family remained guilty by association with Violat and her son. Consequently, the judicial response was not execution, but rather a sentence of perpetual banishment from the burgh. This decision effectively excised Violat and her family from their community, marking the conclusion of their case as recorded in the registers of 1597.
