The Bonnie House of Airlie is a traditional Scottish folk song of the seventeenth century, telling the tale of the raid by Archibald Campbell

Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll

Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, 8th Earl of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell, was the de facto head of government in Scotland during most of the conflict known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, also known as the British Civil War...

, Earl of Argyll, on Airlie

Airlie, Angus

Airlie is a civil parish in the Scottish council area of Angus. It is the seat of the Earl of Airlie, and the location of Airlie Castle. It comprises Craigton of Airlie, Baitland of Airlie and Kirkton of Airlie...

 Castle, the home of James Ogilvy, Earl of Airlie

Earl of Airlie

Earl of Airlie is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created on 2 April 1639 for James Ogilvy, 7th Lord Ogilvy of Airlie, along with the title Lord Ogilvy of Alith and Lintrathen...

, in the summer of 1640. A broadsheet version first appeared in 1790 and it received formal publication as number 199 in Francis Child

Francis James Child

Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of folk songs known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry...

’s collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads

Child Ballads

The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century...

of 1882.

History

Although there had been traditional enmity between the Campbells

Clan Campbell

Clan Campbell is a Highland Scottish clan. Historically one of the largest, most powerful and most successful of the Highland clans, their lands were in Argyll and the chief of the clan became the Earl and later Duke of Argyll.-Origins:...

 and Ogilvys

Clan Ogilvy

-Origins of the clan:The Ogilvys are one of the most distinguished families in Scotland and take their name from Gillebride the second son of Gille Chriosd, Celtic Earl of Angus...

 since at least the sixteenth century, their private feud intensified in 1638, when the two clans joined opposite sides in the National Covenant rebellion: Ogilvy supported the king, Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

, and Campbell the rebels. When James Ogilvy raised a regiment of several hundred men and marched south to the king’s aid, Archibald, claiming to act on behalf of the anti-royalist alliance, seized and destroyed the castle of Airlie and, according to some accounts, brutally raped James Ogilvy’s wife, Margaret.

The texts

Child, collecting in the 1870s, found four broadly similar versions. These all describe how the castle was destroyed by fire after Lady Ogilvy refused to reveal the whereabouts of the family treasure. However other versions continued in oral circulation and the one reproduced here, with its bleak penultimate verse, was collected on 27 June 1955 in Fetterangus

Fetterangus

Fetterangus is a small village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, located just to the north of Mintlaw. Fetterangus is often called "Fishie" though the origin of this nickname is unknown....

 by Hamish Henderson

Hamish Henderson

Hamish Scott Henderson, was a Scottish poet, songwriter, soldier, and intellectual....

 and Peter Kennedy

Peter Douglas Kennedy

Peter Douglas Kennedy was an English collector of folk songs in the 1950s. Peter's father, Douglas, was EFDSS director after Cecil Sharp....

:

It fell on a day, a bonny summer day,

When the corn was ripe and yellow,

That there fell oot a great dispute

Between Argyle aye and Airlie.

Lady Margaret looked o’er yon high castle wall,

And O but she sighed sairly.

She saw Argyle and a’ his men

Come to plunder the bonny hoose o’ Airlie.

“Come doun, come doun Lady Margaret,” he said.

“Come doun and kiss me fairly

Or gin the morning’s clear daylight

I willna leave a standing stane in Airlie.”

“I’ll no come doun, ye false Argyll,

Nor will I kiss thee fairly.

I wouldnae kiss the false Argyle

Though you wouldna leave a standin’ stane in Airlie.”

“For if my gude lord had been at hame,

As he’s awa’ wi’ Chairlie,

There wouldnae come a Campbell frae Argyle

Dare trod upon the bonny green o’ Airlie.”

“For I hae bore him seven bonny sons,

The eighth yin has never seen his daddy

But if I had as mony ower again

They would all be men for Chairlie.”

But poor Lady Margaret was forced to come doun

And O but she sighed sairly

For their in front o’ all his men

She was ravished on the bowlin’ green o’ Airlie.

“Draw your dirks, draw your dirks,” cried the brave Locheil.

“Unsheath your sword,” cried Chairlie,

“We’ll kindle sic a lowe roond the false Argyle,

And licht it wi’ a spark oot o’ Airlie.”

Given the numerous references to “Chairlie” and the allusion to “Locheil

Archibald Cameron of Locheil

Dr Archibald Cameron of Lochiel was a prominent leader in the Jacobite uprising of 1745 and the last Jacobite to be executed for high treason on June 7, 1753.-Before the uprising:...

”, the song has inevitably taken on additional layers of meaning, being understood to refer to Charles Edward Stuart

Charles Edward Stuart

Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...

 and the 1745 rebellion long after the events at Airlie.

Versions

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

 included the song in his Classic Ballads of Britain and Ireland of 1961. It was sung by Belle Stewart

Belle Stewart

Belle Stewart became known as a Scottish traditional singer.The general public knew little about Belle Stewart until 2006, when her daughter, Sheila Stewart, wrote the biography Queen Amang the Heather: the Life of Belle Stewart.Sheila Stewart corrects the frequently cited birthdate 17 July to the...

, who learned the song from her 91-year-old uncle Henry MacDonald. Later recordings, using different tunes, have been made by Ewan MacColl

Ewan MacColl

Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...

 and Kate Rusby

Kate Rusby

Kate Anna Rusby is an English folk singer and songwriter from Penistone, South Yorkshire. Sometimes known as The Barnsley Nightingale, she has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is regarded as one of the most famous English folk singers of contemporary times...

.