In the winter of 1618, the legal apparatus of the burgh of Ayr turned its attention toward a local woman named Janet McAlexander. On the 7th of December, Janet was formally brought before the judicial authorities to answer to charges of witchcraft. While the specific testimony and the nature of the evidence brought against her remain lost to time, the administrative records of the court proceedings, archived under reference C/JO/2862, document the gravity of the scrutiny she faced within the ecclesiastical and civil landscape of early seventeenth-century Scotland.
The legal process culminated in a verdict of guilty, sealing Janet’s fate within the rigid parameters of the era’s criminal justice system. Following the conclusion of her trial, designated T/JO/635, the court issued the ultimate sanction; she was sentenced to be executed by fire. Historical notes accompanying the trial record confirm that this sentence was carried out, marking the end of Janet’s life in Ayr in accordance with the judicial decrees of the period.