In July 1650, Jonet Colquhone, a resident of the parish of Bonhill in Dunbarton, became the subject of a formal legal inquiry regarding allegations of witchcraft. The records of the court, filed under case number C/JO/2939, indicate that the judicial process against her moved with a degree of efficiency typical of the mid-seventeenth century, a period when the Scottish kirk and state intensified their scrutiny of perceived supernatural interference. The surviving documentation establishes that Jonet was brought before the authorities to answer for these grave charges, initiating a process that would lead to a formal trial (T/JO/1141).
During the course of the proceedings, the judicial record notes that a confession was obtained from Jonet on the 7th of July, 1650. In the legal framework of early modern Scotland, a confession was often the focal point of the prosecution, serving as the primary evidence upon which the court relied to conclude the case. While the specific content of her testimony remains confined to the administrative ledger of her trial, the act of confession itself marked the conclusion of the formal inquiry into her actions in Bonhill, closing the legal file on a woman whose life became inextricably caught within the religious and social anxieties of her time.