In May 1709, Beatrix Laing, a married woman of middling status living in the coastal town of Pittenweem, Fife, found herself at the centre of a significant legal proceeding. Her case was inextricably linked to the alleged affliction of Patrick Morton, the sixteen-year-old son of a local blacksmith. Beatrix was one of seven individuals accused of tormenting the youth, a claim that placed the case within the context of the high-profile possession narratives of the period. Town officials, seeking to address the gravity of the situation, invoked the precedent of the "Bargarran’s daughter" case from the west of Scotland, eventually securing the intervention of Her Majesty’s Advocate, Sir James Stewart, who was appointed by the Privy Council to prosecute the accused at the Crown’s expense.
The trajectory of the legal process against Beatrix was protracted and arduous. Having already provided a confession in June 1704, she was subjected to severe physical pressures, including confinement in the stocks and the systematic use of sleep deprivation. By October 1708, she and her co-accused were placed under caution and ordered to appear at the circuit court, a precursor to further judicial actions. In the spring of 1709, she was arrested once more under a new porteous roll and transferred to Perth for trial. Despite the formal documentation of these movements and the heavy involvement of the state, the surviving records conclude without providing a final verdict or resolution to the proceedings against her.