In 1662, during a period of intense judicial scrutiny in Haddington, a young man named Jon Russell of Nisbet was swept into the machinery of the Scottish witch trials. His arrest occurred amidst a broader wave of accusations, as he was one of many individuals denounced by a man named James Welch. During the legal proceedings that followed, the court encountered a procedural complication regarding Jon’s age; he was deemed too young to undergo a full criminal trial for the serious charges brought against him.
Consequently, rather than facing the high court, Jon was held in indefinite imprisonment. Despite his youth preventing a formal trial, the authorities took his involvement in the proceedings seriously. During his confinement, officials recorded a confession from him and documented his own denunciations of others, both of which were treated as credible evidence within the records of the case. Thus, while his age spared him from the courtroom, Jon remained a significant figure within the broader administrative and judicial investigation of the period.