The Earl of Airly, a nobleman zealously attached to the cause of King Charles, withdrew from Scotland in order to avoid subscribing the Covenant, leaving his eldest son Lord Ogilvie at home. The Committee of Estates, hearing that Airly had fled the country, directed the Earls of Montrose and Kinghorn to take possession of his castle, but in this, owing to the exceeding strength of the place, they did not succeed. Subsequently the Earl of Argyle, a personal enemy of the Earl of Airly, was charged with the same commission, and raised an army of five thousand men to carry out his trust. Lord Ogilvie was unable to hold out against such a force, and abandoned his father's stronghold, which, as well as his own residence of Forthar, was plundered and utterly destroyed by Argyle. Lady Ogilvie is said to have been pregnant at the time of the burning of Forthar, and to have undergone considerable danger before she could find proper refuge. She never had, however, more than one son, though she is endowed with no fewer than ten by the ballads. According to one account, the event here celebrated took place in 1639; another assigns it to 1640. (Napier's _Montrose and the Covenanters_, i. 533.) The _Bonnie House of Airly_ was first printed in Finlay's _Scottish Ballads_. Other copies are given in Cromek's _Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song_, p. 225; Smith's _Scottish Minstrel_, ii. 2; Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_, ii. 152; Sharpe's _Ballad Book_, p. 59; and Kinloch's _Ancient Scottish Ballads_, p. 104. A modern attempt on the same theme may be seen in Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_, ii. 411. Allan Cunningham, misled by the Ogilvies' continuing to the Pretender the devotion they exhibited to the Royal Martyr and his son, has transferred the burning of Airly to the 18th century. See his _Young Airly_, in Cromek's _Remains_, p. 196, and, rewritten, in _The Songs of Scotland_, iii. 218. It fell on a day, and a bonnie summer day, When the corn grew green and yellow, That there fell out a great dispute Between Argyle and Airly. The Duke o' Montrose has written to Argyle 5 To come in the morning early, An' lead in his men, by the back o' Dunkeld, To plunder the bonnie house o' Airly. The lady look'd o'er her window sae hie, And O but she looked weary! 10 And there she espied the great Argyle Come to plunder the bonnie house o' Airly. "Come down, come down, Lady Margaret," he says, "Come down and kiss me fairly, Or before the morning clear daylight, 15 I'll no leave a standing stane in Airly." "I wadna kiss thee, great Argyle, I wadna kiss thee fairly, I wadna kiss thee, great Argyle, Gin you shoudna leave a standing stane in Airly." 20