In the spring of 1662, the parish of Pencaitland in Haddingtonshire became embroiled in a series of legal proceedings sparked by the confessions of a young man named James Welch. Although the authorities deemed Welch too young to undergo a formal trial and instead ordered his imprisonment, the gravity of his testimony carried significant weight within the local judiciary. His detailed denunciations, taken seriously by the magistrates, implicated several individuals in the county, among whom was Jonet Liddell.
Following these accusations, Jonet was processed under case file C/EGD/542 and subsequently listed in the trial records as T/LA/1385. Her legal entanglement reflects the volatile environment of 1662, a year marked by a concentrated surge in witchcraft prosecutions across Scotland. As a direct consequence of the information provided by Welch, Jonet was drawn into the judicial machinery of the era, where the testimony of a confessed associate—regardless of the accuser's age—served as a sufficient catalyst for the initiation of formal proceedings.