In the late autumn of 1679, the legal apparatus of seventeenth-century Scotland turned its attention to Jonet Stewart, an indweller in the port town of Bo'ness, Linlithgow. On 24 November, her name was formally entered into the judicial records as part of case C/LA/3072, marking the commencement of a process that would soon subject her to the rigours of the courtroom. As an inhabitant of a bustling coastal community, Jonet lived within a society where the boundaries between the mundane and the supernatural were frequently interrogated by the kirk sessions and the civil magistrates.
The progression of her case, identified in the archives as T/LA/1463, followed the established trajectory of the period’s witchcraft prosecutions. Having been identified by the authorities in Linlithgow, Jonet was transitioned from the initial stages of accusation into the formal trial process. While the brief entries in the surviving records provide little detail regarding the specific charges or the eventual outcome of the proceedings against her, they serve as a testament to the precarious nature of life for an indweller in Bo'ness during this era of intensive witch-hunting. Her narrative remains preserved in these sparse administrative fragments, reflecting the broader patterns of local justice that defined the lives of women across the Scottish Lowlands during the seventeenth century.