Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) was the queen of Scotland from her marriage by proxy to King James VI on 20 August 1589 and queen of England and Ireland from his accession on 24 March 1603 until her death in 1619. When Anne intended to sail to Scotland in 1589 her ship was delayed by adverse weather. Contemporary superstition blamed the delays to her voyage and other misfortunes on "contrary winds" summoned by witchcraft. There were witchcraft trials in Denmark and in Scotland. The King's kinsman, Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell came into suspicion. The Chancellor of Scotland John Maitland of Thirlestane, thought to be Bothwell's enemy, was lampooned in a poem Rob Stene's Dream, and Anne of Denmark made Maitland her enemy. Historians continue to investigate these events.

James VI wrote verses given the title "A complaint against the contrary Wyndes that hindered the Queene to com to Scotland from Denmarke". The historian Liv Helene Willumsen, who examined international correspondence and highlighted examples of the phrase "contrary winds", said that in 1589 fears over straightforward events like adverse weather at sea were blamed on supernatural causes, and the powerless and the vulnerable, to bolster personal and royal honour.

Anne of Denmark sailed on 5 September 1589 with Peder Munk and Henrik Knudsen Gyldenstierne, admiral of the fleet, and 18 ships. The Danish fleet included the Gideon, Josaphad or Josafat their flagship, Samson, Joshua, Dragon, Raphael, St Michael, Gabriel, Little Sertoun (Lille Fortuna), Mouse, Rose, the Falcon of Birren, the Blue Lion, the Blue Dove (Blaa Due) and the White Dove (Hvide Due). When they were only a mile away from the palace of Kronborg, adverse winds prevented progress for two days.

Anne's fleet sailed west but the wind failed them and they put in to Flekkerøy or Flekkerøya, an island on the coast of Norway, where Peder Munk was able to arrange a welcoming banquet. Contrary winds frustrated attempts to progress from Flekkerøy. The Gideon began to leak. Peder Munk told Anne that the hold was filling with water, despite the request of the two learned academics and diplomats Paul Knibbe and Niels Krag. Two ships, the Parrot and the Fighting Cock were scattered from the fleet. Peder Munk and the Danish nobles discussed their options to return to Denmark or go to Oslo with the Scottish representative, George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal.

Lord Dingwall's ship arrived at Stonehaven with the news of the storm and the apprehension that the Queen was in danger on the seas. James VI wrote to the Earl Marischal, Anne's companion, (who he called "My little fat pork"), on 28 September asking for news, and worried about the "longer protracting of time" and the "contrariousness of winds".

While waiting for his bride at Seton Palace, James VI may have begun a series of love poems in Scots now known as the Amatoria. A manuscript copy of the eleven Amatoria sonnets in the British Library gives the first poem the title, "A complaint against the contrary Wyndes that hindered the Queene to com to Scotland from Denmarke", although internal evidence suggests the poems were completed later.

King James decided to go to Norway himself after he received letters from Anne of Denmark saying she had been delayed from setting out and would not try again. The diplomats Steen Bille and Andrew Sinclair delivered the letters to King James on 10 October. Anne of Denmark had written two letters from Flekkerøy near Oslo in Norway, in the French she had learned in preparation for her marriage. She signed one letter as "Anne" and another as "Anna". The "Anna" letter includes this phrase, about vents contraires;

"nous sommes desja par quatre ou cinq fois avances en la mer, mais que par vents contraires et autres inconvenients y survenus, avons maintenant nous present, et la redoubtance de plus grands dangers qui sont tresapparents a contrainct toute ceste compagnie, bien à nostre grand regret et des vostres, qui en sont extrement desplaisants, de prendre une resolution, de ne rien plus attenter pour ceste fois, ains de differer le voiage jusques à la primevere"

[W]e have already put out to sea four or five times but have always been driven back to the harbours from which we had sailed, thanks to contrary winds and other problems which arose at sea, which is the cause why, now Winter is hastening down on us, and fearing greater dangers which are clearly apparent, all this company is constrained, much to our regret, and that of your men, who are highly displeased about it, to make it our resolution not to risk any further attempt at this time, but to defer the voyage until the spring.