In the early months of 1618, the legal apparatus of the Scottish witch trials reached the parish of Aberlemno in the county of Forfar. Among those caught within these proceedings was Jonnett Gardiner, whose case is preserved in the judicial records under the reference C/EGD/891. As a resident of Aberlemno, Jonnett found herself subject to the formal processes of the era, which culminated in a scheduled trial recorded in the Justiciary archives as T/LA/246.
The documentation dated February 24, 1618, marks the point at which Jonnett was formally processed by the authorities. While the specific nature of the accusations levelled against her remains part of the broader legal record of the period, the transition from local suspicion to a formal trial underscores the gravity with which the court approached her case. Through the surviving entries, Jonnett remains fixed in the historical landscape of seventeenth-century Forfar, representing one of the many lives impacted by the intensifying scrutiny of the Scottish kirk and state during this volatile era.