Margaret Vinstarr

Margaret Winstar, more accurately recorded as Margaret or Margrethe Vinstarr, was a Danish gentlewoman and favoured attendant of Anne of Denmark at the Scottish court of James VI. She is chiefly remembered for rescuing her lover, John Wemyss of Logie, after he was imprisoned at Dalkeith Palace in 1592 for his involvement with the rebellious Earl of Bothwell.

Margaret persuaded the guards that Wemyss was required by the queen, brought him through the royal apartments and helped him escape through a window using a rope or knotted sheets. Anne refused James VI’s demand that Margaret be sent back to Denmark, and Margaret later married Wemyss and became known as Lady Logie.

In Naomi Kelsey’s The Burnings, in 1589, Scottish housemaid Geillis Duncan and Danish courtier Margaret Vinstarr occupy opposite positions in a society where women can be destroyed by an accusation of witchcraft.