In the summer of 1622, the judicial machinery of Perth turned its attention to Janet McIllwhichill, a resident of the settlement of Ardroch. Recorded under the archival classification C/EGD/910, Janet was formally brought before the authorities on the 13th of June. At this stage in early modern Scotland, such an appearance marked the beginning of a precarious legal process, as the accusations leveled against her entered the formal registers of the period’s criminal proceedings.
Following her initial identification and the recording of her case, Janet was subjected to the procedures associated with the trial of a capital offense, indexed separately under the reference T/LA/352. The transition from the filing of the case to the initiation of the trial underscores the gravity with which the local magistrates and legal officials viewed the charges brought against her in Ardroch. While the specific nature of the allegations remains encapsulated within these surviving legal documents, the records confirm her journey through the seventeenth-century Scottish justice system, documenting her status as a subject of formal prosecution during a time of heightened scrutiny toward suspected witchcraft.