Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, a madcap cousin of James VI, had been guilty of a violent assault upon Holy rood House in December (or September), 1591, and in June, 1592, had "conspired the apprehension of the king's person" while James was residing at Falkland. A confederate, Wemyss of Logie, was arrested and "ordained to be tried by an assize and executed to the death. But the same night that he was examined, he escaped out by the means of a gentlewoman whom he loved, a Dane, who conveyed him out of his keepers' hands, through the queen's chamber, where his Majesty and the queen were lying in their beds, to a window in the backside of the place, where he went down upon a tow [rope], and shot three pistols in token of his onlouping [mounting his horse] where some of his servants, with the laird of Niddry, were awaiting him." (Moysie's Memoirs, p. 95.) According to another account, the gentlewoman got Logie out of his keepers' hands by pretending that the king wished to speak with him, and they, "suspecting nothing, for they knew her to be the principal maid in the chamber, conveyed him to the door of the bedchamber" and waited there while she was letting him down at a window. Though the queen had no hand in the freeing of Young Logie, she stood by her Danish attendant, and appears to have pacified the king. Logie was pardoned and married the gentlewoman. Her name was really Margaret, as in the ballad.
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