In the year 1618, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland turned its attention toward Janet M'Allexander, a resident of the burgh of Ayr. Her case, documented within the legal archives as C/LA/3179, represents a somber intersection of local suspicion and the formal processes of the Scottish courts during a period when the prosecution of witchcraft was heavily codified under the Witchcraft Act of 1563. As Janet was brought before the authorities in Ayr to answer for the charges leveled against her, the administrative record began to chart a course toward a final, irreparable conclusion.
Following the legal proceedings recorded under T/LA/1746, the court delivered a verdict of guilty. The sentence mandated by the judges was execution, a penalty that was subsequently carried out. Janet met her end by fire, a method of execution historically prescribed in Scotland for those convicted of this particular capital offense. The formal records of her trial stand as the definitive markers of her life’s conclusion within the legal framework of 17th-century Ayrshire, preserving the circumstances of her death while closing the account of her brief appearance in the historical record.