Margaret was the daughter of Anne and her father Tom a local farmer on the Edzell estate.  She helped her mother around the farm and house.  Whilst relatively young she met a man called Alan of Harris and they fell on love. To their shocked Margaret found herself with child and they could not bear to reveal this news to her parents for having children out of wedlock was considered sacrilege.

They decided to run away and eventually Alan found work as a forester and Margaret as cook with Sir Joseph, Lord of Brechin.  When he died he was succeeded by his son Sir Harry de Brechin who was so pleased with their hard work and dedication to him that he learnt Alan new skills and it was then that he became a fine Sergeant of Arms.  Sir Harry encouraged them to travel in order to fulfil Margaret's ambition of becoming a banqueting expert.

The couple travelled with their son to Bavaria and Margaret studied with Europe's finest cook - Emilia Emhari.  She was so please with her new found skills that she could not wait to return home to demonstrate these. However, her happiness was short lived when waiting to board a ship at Calais a skirmish broke out, during the confusion Margaret was parted form her son. For weeks they searched for their son but to no avail, someone had kidnapped him and Margaret was devastated, no amount of comfort could relieve the grief she now endured.  They returned home and she pleaded with Sir Harry to use his influence abroad to help find her son, he promised that he would use his colleague Sir Andreas of Thurso who was abroad at that time to find out what he could.

Years had passed and there was still no word of her son, most of the men were away fighting under Robert the Bruce and thankfully Margaret found herself travelling to Kildrummy castle where Alan had been given the position of  Sergeant of Arms. Margaret's heart lifted when she saw her old friend Emilia Emhari and she learned that Emilia had been invited to Scotland by Sir Harry to work for Lady Eleanor de Culter.  After the war had ended she returned to the Brechin household with Lady Paulina as her servant. Sometime later Margaret became more content with life and one day Alan had come to see her followed by two men, one she instantly recognised as Sir Andreas and the other a younger man who kept his head bowed low and when he lifted his eyes to meet hers Margaret instantly knew her son who know stood before her as a grown man.

A feast was held that day, the likes of which had never been known before, Sir Andreas commented to Sir Harry  that he would need to visit his banqueting table more often.