In April 1662, Jonet Robeson, a married woman of middling socioeconomic status residing in Stonhouse, Haddington, found her life abruptly altered by the judicial machinery of the Scottish witch trials. Her ordeal was not initiated by a local grievance or a singular accuser from her own village, but rather emerged from the extensive testimonies of James Welch. Welch, a youth whose own culpability was set aside by the authorities on account of his tender age, had provided a vast list of denunciations that swept up numerous residents of the region. Despite his youth, the authorities took his confessions and accusations with grave seriousness, treating his words as a credible basis for formal legal proceedings.
Following these denunciations, Jonet was processed through the Haddington courts under case reference C/EGD/531. The records, which occasionally denote her surname as Robertson, place her among a larger cohort of individuals caught in the wake of Welch’s testimony. As the legal mechanisms of the period ground forward, Jonet transitioned from an ordinary member of the Stonhouse community to a subject of intense judicial scrutiny. Her trial, documented under T/LA/390, reflects the period's rigorous insistence on documenting the testimonies and denunciations that defined the experience of those accused during this volatile decade.