> Louis Killen > Songs > The Bonny Hoose o’ Airlie

The Bonny House of Airlie

[ Roud 794 ; Child 199 ; G/D 2:233 ; Ballad Index C199 ; Folkinfo 869 ; DT BONAIRLI ; Mudcat 38114 ; trad.]

Sheila Douglas: Come Gie’s a Sang Alexander Keith: Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs James Kinsley: The Oxford Book of Ballads Emily B. Lyle: Andrew Crawfurd’s Collection of Ballads and Songs Ewan MacColl: Folk Songs and Ballads of Scotland Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger: Travellers’ Songs From England and Scotland John Ord: Bothy Songs and Ballads James Porter and Herschel Gower: Jeannie Robertson: Emergent Singer, Transformative Voice Elizabeth Stewart, Alison McMorland: Up Yon Wide and Lonely Glen

Ewan MacColl sang The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie in 1956 on his and A.L. Lloyd’s Riverside album of Child ballads, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Volume I. This track was included in 2009 on the Ewan MacColl CD Ballads: Murder·Intrigue·Love·Discord. He also sang this ballad on his 1964 Folkways album The English and Scottish Popular Ballads: Vol. 2. Editor Kenneth S. Goldstein noted on the first album:

This ballad describes the burning and sacking in 1640 of the castle of the Earl of Airlie, a supporter of Charles Edward, by the Duke of Argyll. Airlie, aware that he would be forced to renounce the King, left Scotland, leaving his house in the keeping of his oldest son, Lord Ogilvie. Argyll, ordered to proceed against the castle, raised several thousand men for the purpose. When Ogilvie heard of his coming with such a huge force, the castle was abandoned. Lady Ogilvie’s defiance is an invention of the ballad muse, for it has been fairly well established that none of the family was there at the time the castle was sacked.

The ballad is rare outside of Scotland, a few versions having been collected in North America. The version MacColl sings was collected from Boston Dunn, an iron moulder from Falkirk, Stirlingshire.

Max Dunbar sang The Bonnie Hoose of Airlie in 1959 on his Folkways album Songs and Ballads of the Scottish Wars 1290-1745. He noted:

The Reformation was in full swing and the ferment of the 17^th century was bubbling. In Scotland, the Covenanters had ideas about the rights of Parliament and the proper position of kings and bishops which, if put into effect at the time, would have hastened the democratic development of the whole of Britain, and which certainly have been preserved in Scotland to this day. King Charles I was very active in the affairs of Scotland, and (unwisely, as it turned out) opposed to the Covenant. Trouble had been brewing for some time before 1640, the date of the event recorded in this song. There was the usual side- changing, and the so-called “First Bishops’ War” began in 1639. We find the Campbells, under Argyll, on the side of the Covenant, for the time being; and Ogilvie, Lord of Airlie, on the side of the Crown. Charles, trying to continue the Tudor theory of royalty, and having decided that the Catholic cause was not practicable, was determined to force the Episcopacy and the ‘High Church’ upon Scotland, as well as the “Divine right of Kings”. Andrew Lang is of the opinion that had Charles gathered the English together at that time against the Scots, his own head would have been saved and the course of history changed. But instead of open war Charles chose skirmishes and intrigue in Scotland, and it is one event in this “war” that the ballad of The Bonnie House of Airlie records. Argyll received a “commission of fire and sword” against Airlie, from the Scottish Committee of the Estates.

The words of the ballad are taken from Goss’s Ballads of Britain; but the tune used here was recorded by Helen Creighton in Nova Scotia, sung to another version of the same ballad.

Lucy Stewart of Fetterangus, Aberdeenshire, sang The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie on her 1961 Folkways album Traditional Singer From Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Vol. 1: Child Ballads. Kenneth S. Goldstein noted:

This ballad describes the burning and sacking in 1640 of the castle of the Earl of Airlie, a supporter of Charles Edward, by the Duke of Argyle. Airlie, aware that he would be forced to renounce the King, left Scotland, leaving his house in the keeping of his oldest son, Lord Ogilvie. Argyle, ordered to proceed against the castle, raised several thousand men for the purpose. When Ogilvie heard of his coming with such a large force, the castle was abandoned. Lady Ogilvie’s defiance is an invention of the ballad muse, for it has been fairly well established that none of the family were there at the time the castle was sacked.

Though fairly well known in tradition throughout Scotland, the ballad is rarely reported elsewhere, a few versions having been collected in North America.

For additional texts and information, see: Child, Volume IV, p. 54ff; Greig & Keith, p. 123ff; Ord, p. 470; Coffin, pp. 119-120.

Belle Stewart of Blairgowrie, Perthshire sang The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie in 1955 to Peter Kennedy and Hamish Henderson. This recording was included in 2000 on the Rounder anthology Classic Ballads of Britain and Ireland Volume 2 which is an extended reissue of the 1961 Caedmon and 1968 Topic album on Child ballads in the Folk Songs of Britain series. The album’s booklet noted:

It was in 1640 that the Earl of Argyle was given a commission on religious grounds to take arms against Airlie and to pursue him “with fire and sword”. Unfortunately, Airlie had gone to London and left his house in the keeping of his eldest son, Lord Ogilvie, who was unable to protect his mother and her seven other children. The earliest copy is a broadside of 1790, and a printed tune appeared shortly after. The balad, with its dramatic story of pillage and its memorable tune, has been popular in Scotland ever since.

Child has four texts and one fragment of this ballad, Bronson has 16, including transcriptions of performances by Scots folk revival singers, Isabel Sutherland and Ewan McColl.

Belle Stewart (1906-1998), came from the McGregor family that used to travel Perthshire with their ‘shelties’ (Highland ponies), hawking, tinkering, and helping farmers at harvest time. In her own words:

I have always been interested in the very old songs, even as a very small child. I would rather listen to my brother, my uncle, or my granny than go out and play with the other kids. In fact, I got most of my oldest songs and ballads from my eldest brother, Donald, and my uncle, Henry, who was 91 when he died. My father too was an exceptionally fine singer, but he died when I was still a baby, but I managed to learn most of his songs from Donald. Although my mother wasn’t a singer, she knew all the songs.

Belle went up to London in 1961 to take part in an educational history program on TV for Peter Kennedy, and Peter still treasures the film that he made of her singing this ballad, with Belle supposedly pointing out Airlie in the background, although, for reasons of early TV economy, the background was actually London’s Hampstead Heath.

Belle Stewart also sang Bonnie House o’ Airlie in a 1967 recording made by Bill Leader on the 1968 Topic album of songs and ballads from the Lowland East of Scotland, Back o’ Benachie, Peter Hall noted:

In 1640 the Convention of Estates granted a “commission of fire and sword” to the Earl of Argyle against the Earl of Arlie and other adherents of Charles I. Hence this ballad. Even in those brutal times Argyle’s actions seem to have offended many and he felt it necessary to get an “Act of Ratificatioune and Exoneratioune” to absolve him from blame.

The air used here is a variant of A Wee Bird Cam’ to our Ha’ Door and appears in Ancient Scots Ballads (1894) by George Eyre-Todd. Originally it belonged to The Gypsy Laddie but the editor, lacking a tune for Airlie, printed it for both songs, and so the tune has remained attached to some versions of the recital of Argyle’s cruelty.

And Belle Stewart sang Bonnie House o’ Airlie in 1985 on the Stewart Family’s Lismore album The Stewarts of Blair.

Nigel Denver sang The Bonny Hoose o’ Airlie in 1965 on his Decca album Moving On.

John MacDonald sang The Bonnie House o’ Airlie on his 1975 Topic album of Scots ballads, bothy songs and melodeon tunes, The Singing Molecatcher of Morayshire. This recording was also included on the 1998 Topic anthology It Fell on a Day, a Bonny Summer Day (The Voice of the People Series Vol. 17). Hamish Henderson noted on MacDonald’s album:

In 1640 the confrontation between Covenanters (militant Presbyterians) and Episcopalian Royalists gave the Presbyterian satrap the Earl of Argyll a golden opportunity to take it out on the ancestral enemies of his house (who happened also to be the “enemies of true religion”). Having received a commission of fire and sword from a Committee of the Scottish Parliament, he gathered his clan, marched into Angus and burned “the bonnie hoose o’ Airlie” , stronghold of the Ogilvies. The Earl of Airlie was at that time in England, with King Charles I, and it was his son, Lord Ogilvie, who held the castle for the Royalists. Lady Ogilvie was at another mansion (Forthar, in Glenisla) and it was from here that she was driven—if we are to believe Gordon of Rothiemay, and the partisan balladeers—in circumstances of extreme barbarity.

Later on, Jacobite ballad singers naturally changed the King Charlie of the contemporary ballad to Prince Charlie, and it then became associated with the Rising of 1745. The ‘bowerie’ of John’s version seems to be the ‘dowry’ of some earlier variants. His tune will be recognised as that usually associated with Loch Lomond.

Louis Killen sang The Bonny Hoose o’ Airlie in 1978 on his LP Old Songs, Old Friends. He noted:

Another friend who traded me many songs was Laurie Charlton, borderer, gunsmith, art teacher, ballad singer, and fisherman, who ran Folksong and Ballad in Newcastle after I took off for London in 1961. But well before that he taught me Ca’ the Yowes. […] I also got from Laurie The Bonny Hoose o’ Aurlie, that ballad of the burning of the home of the Ogilvies by the covenanting Campbells, while the former were supporting King Charles I against Cromwell and Parliament.

Five Hand Reel sang The House of Airlie in 1979 on their Topic album A Bunch of Fives. They noted:

In 1640, the Earl of Airlie and two of his sons paid dearly for their loyalty to Montrose and the Royalist cause by having their estates plundered and mansion burned to the ground by the vengeful Duke of Argyle. The Lady Ogilvie in the song is the wife of the elder of the Airlie sons.

Gerry Hallom sang this ballad in 1981 on his Fellside album Travellin’ Down the Castlereagh.

Bobby Eaglesham sang The Bonny House of Airlie in 1997 on the Fellside anthology Ballads. Paul Adams noted:

Many attempts have been made to ascribe historical events and figures to ballads as has been mentioned elsewhere in this text. Normally the links are tenuous, but in this case the origins are based on fact. !n 1640 the Convention of Estates granted a “commission of fire and sword” to Archibald Campbell the 8^th Earl of Argyll against the Earl of Airlie and other adherents of Charles I. They were harsh and brutal times and yet Argyll’s actions seem to have offended to such an extend that he was obliged to obtain an “Act of Ratificatioune & Exoeneratioune” to absolve himself from blame. The ballad takes liberties with the historical fact (it is doubtful whether Argyll was there in person). Lady Ogilvie is the Earl of Airlie’s daughter-in-law. Airlie had left Airlie Castle (part of the old castle stands within the grounds of the modern mansion which bears its name about 5 miles SW of Kirriemuir) in the hands of his son. Reputedly Argyll raised five thousand men and on hearing this Lord Ogilvie fled for safety. The numbers and names vary from version to version.

Maureen Jelks sang The Bonny Hoose o’ Airlie in 2000 on her album Eence Upon a Time. She noted:

I thought it was about time I learned this as I live just a few miles from Airlie. This version is from Scottish Ballads, Cannongate Classics, edited by Emily Lyle, but I have heard it sung by the late Belle Stewart, another favourite singer. It is about the burning of the House of Airlie by the Argylls, an event that occurred in 1645 during the reign of Charles I.

Isla St Clair sang The Bonny House of Airlie in 2000 on her Highland Classics album Royal Lovers & Scandals. She noted:

In 1640 James, Earl of Airlie, a devoted royalist went to England and left his son, Lord Ogilvy, to defend his castles of Airlie and Forfar. The Earl of Argyle, a longstanding enemy of the Ogilvies decided to attack the castles. After Airlie was razed to the ground, Argyle marched to Forfar where he caught Lady Ogilvy. His scandalous and cruel treatment of her is the subject of the ballad. The King Charlie mentioned is the Stuart monarch Charles I. This version is thought to be the most spirited.

Stanley Robertson sang The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife in May 2003 or May 2004. This recording was included in 2005 on the festival’s Autumn Harvest CD Here’s a Health to the Company (Old Songs & Bothy Ballads Volume 1). He also sang this song on his posthumous 2009 Elphinstone Institute anthology The College Boy. He said:

I’m singin aboot Charles I and he come up tae Scotland and caused the Covenanters’ Wars amongst aabody. The Travellers kent the history o it. In Scotland, if your name’s Charles, they cry ye Charlie, whether you were a King or not. That’s a powerful song, that’s a galdery ballad that. Ye’ve tae galder it, ye’ve tae bawl oot o ye. It’s a fine een for the chorus, tae join in. The Ogilvies owned the hoose o Airlie. I have met the Maister of Airlie; in later years he once come and presented a cup tae the folk at the Auchermuchty Festival. And I met Lady Airlie an aa. They’re old nobility and auld Argyll fa’s the Duke o Campbell; he’s aye in trouble in lots an lots o ballads. So I think he wis eventually hanged or beheaded aifter this een. But the Duke o Montrose wis goody-goody, but he changed sides, became wicked. But I think he wis hanged an aa.

[Lady Airlie] gets raped on the green o Airlie [in other versions], but the Travellers never put in that verse. They just said, “He’s taen her by the hand by the lily white hand/ But he’s taen her maist unfairly”, so she wis probably dragged oot screamin and bein ravished. An then her bairns an that were aa killed. Because fin they burnt the hoose they burnt aa the servants an aathing in it. But it just so happened that Lord Ogilvie wis awa wi Charles I at this Covenanter war. And so it left an affa lot o scars to be healed in Scotland and caused a lot o trouble.

Of course aa the different songs I sing have different influences. I’ve got to find that influence of the person that done it wi me, ye ken? [That one’s] very much ma father’s; naebody else in Scotland sings that version, cause aabody’s singin [the tune for Wae’s Me for Prince Chairlie]. I’ll just try and tap ma taes inside ma shoes because ma father aye has these rousing songs, military style.

… and Thomas A. McKean and Sara Reith noted:

Stanley’s version of the Bonnie Hoose uses a tune quite different from that usually heard, the ‘military air’, he called it. Stanley is keen to point out that the ‘Chairlie’ involved is not Bonnie Prince Charlie, but rather Charles I, reviled by Presbyterians for attempting to compel the use of an Episcopalian prayer book. Scotland’s response was ‘the Covenant’, a strongly worded denunciation of the plan.

The song has been very popular throughout the twentieth century, including among Traveller singers; versions have been recorded from Lucy Stewart (Lucy Stewart, Folkways FG 3519, 1961), Jeannie Robertson (Porter and Gower, pp.162-63) and it is particularly associated with Belle Stewart (Classic Ballads 2, Rounder CD 1776, 1976). Carpenter records fourteen versions, including one from “the Earl of Airlie’s children, young Lord and Lady Ogilvie”, descendants of the family involved in the action of the song, recorded at Cortachy Castle. Stanley’s closing two stanzas are striking in their personal tone, more revealing of emotion than most classic ballad language.

‘Shaw’ (3.3) is a small wood; ‘lowe’ (12.1, 14.3, 14.5) is a fire and ‘smoor’ (13.4, 13.6) in this context means ‘suffocated’; its everyday meaning is ‘banked’, as in preserving a domestic fire overnight.

Kate Rusby sang a shorter version of The Bonny House of Airlie in 2005 on her CD The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly.

Jon Boden sang The Bonny House of Airlie as the 28 August 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He gave Louis Killen as his source.

Fiona Hunter learned The Bonny Hoose o Airlie from the singing of Belle Stewart and sang it in 2015 on Malinky’s album Far Better Days. This video shows Malinky at TradFest Edinburgh in June 2015:

Alasdair Roberts and Màiri Morrison sang The Bonny House of Airlie in 2025 on their Drag City album of songs collected by Helen Creighton in Nova Scotia, Remembered in Exile.

Lyrics

Belle Stewart sings The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie

It fell on a day 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.
When she saw Argyle and a’ his men,
Come to plunder the bonny hoose o’ Airlie.

“Come down, come down, Lady Margaret”, he cried,
“Come down and kiss me fairly,
For gin the morning’s clear daylight,
I wouldna leave a standin’ stane in Airlie.”

“I’ll no come doon, ye false Argyle,
Nor will I kiss thee fairly.
I wouldna kiss the false Argyle,
Though you wouldna leave a standin’ stane in Airlie.

“But if my gude lord had been at hame,
As he’s awa’ wi’ Chairlie,
There wouldna come a Campbell frae Argyle,
Dare trod upon the bonny green o’ Airlie.

“Gor I hae bore him seven bonny sons,
But the eighth has never seen his daddy.
And if I had as mony ower again.
They would all be men for Chairlie.”

Argyle in a rage he kindled sic a lowe,
That it rose to licht red and clearly.
And poor Lady Margaret and a’ her bairns
Were smothered in the dark reek o’ Airlie.

“Draw your dirks, draw your dirks”, cried the brave Lochiel,
“Unsheath your sword”, cried Chairlie.
"And we’ll kindle sic a lowe roond the false Argyle,
And we’ll lift it wi’ a spark oot o’ Airlie.”

Ewan MacColl sings The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie

It fell on a day, on a bonnie summer’s day
When the sun shone bright and clearly,
That there fell oot a great dispute
Atween Argylle and Airlie.

Argylle he has mustered a thousand o’ his men,
He has marched them oot right early;
He has marched them in by the back o’ Dunkeld,
To plunder the bonnie hoose o’ Airlie.

Lady Ogilvie has looked frae her window so high,
And O, but she grat sairly,
To see Argylle and a’ his men
Come plunder the bonnie hoose of Airlie.

“Come doon, come doon, Lady Ogilvie,” he cried:
“Come doon and kiss me fairly,
Or I swear by the hilt o’ my gewwd braidsword
That I winna leave a stan’in’ stane in Airlie.”

“I winna come doon, ye cruel Argylle,
I winna kiss ye fairly;
I wadna kiss ye, fause Argylle,
Though ye sudna leave a stan’in’ stane in Airlie.”

“Come, tell me whaur your dowry is hid,
Come doon and tell me fairly.”
“l winna tell ye whaur my dowry is hid,
Though ye sudna leave a stan’in’ stane in Airlie.”

They socht it up and they socht it down,
I wat, they socht it early;
And it was below yon bowling green
They found the dowry o’ Airlie.

“Eleven bairns I ha’e born
And the twelfth ne’er saw his daddie,
But though I had gotten as mony again,
They suld a’ gang to fecht for Charlie.

“Gin my gweed lord had been at hame,
As he’s awa’ for Charlie,
There dursna a Campbell o’ a’ Argylle
Set a fit on the bonnie hoose o’ Airlie.”

He’s ta’en her by the milk-white hand,
But he did not lead her fairly;
He led her up to the top o’ the hill,
Where she saw the burnin’ o’ Airlie.

The smoke and flame they rose so high,
The walls were blackened fairly;
And the lady laid her doon on the green to dee,
When she saw the burnin’ o’ Airlie.

Max Dunbar sings The Bonnie House o’ Airlie

It fell on a day, on a bonny summer day,
When the corn grew green and yellow,
That there fell out a great dispute
Between Argyle and Airlie.

The great Argyle raised five hundred men,
Five hundred men and many,
And he’s led them down by the back o’ Dunkeld
To plunder the bonnie house o’ Airlie.

The lady looked o’er her window sae hie,
And O but she looked wear’ly;
And there she spied the great Argyle
Come to plunder the bonnie house o’ Airlie.

“Come down, come down, my lady,” he says,
“Come down and kiss me fairly.
Or e’er the mornin clear daylight,
I’ll no leave a standing stane in Airlie.”

He has taen her by the left shoulder,
And O but she looked sairly,
And he has led her down to the top o’ the town,
Bade her look at the plundering o’ Airlie.

“You may tell it to your lord”, he says,
“You may tell it to Lord Airlie,
That one kiss o’ his gay lady
Wad hae saved the plundering o’ Airlie.

“Gin the great Sir John had been at hame,
As he’s this nicht wi’ Charlie,
There durst na a Campbell in a’ the west,
Hae plundered the bonnie house o’ Airlie.

“Seven, seven sons hae I born unto him,
And the eighth ne’er saw his dady,
And altho I were to have a hundred more,
They should a’ draw their swords for Charlie.”

Lucy Stewart sings The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie

O, it fell on a day, on a bonnie summer day,
When the clans were awa’ wi’ Charlie,
An’ there fell oot a great dispute
A’ between Argyle, aye, an’ Airlie.

Argyle he’s called a hundred of his men
For to come in the mornin’ early,
An’ they sat doon by the back o’ ol’ Dunkeld
For to plunder the bonnie hoose o’ Airlie.

Lady Ogilvie lookit from her window high,
And o but she sighed sairly,
To see Argyle an’ a’ his men
Come to plunder the bonnie hoose o’ Airlie.

“Come down, come down, Lady Ogilvie,” he cried,
“Come down an’ kiss me sairly,
Or I swear by the sword that hangs doon by my side,
That I’ll nae leave a stanin’ steen o’er Airlie.”

“O, I vidnae come doon, great Argyle,” she cried,
"Or I vidnae kiss ye sairly;
I vidnae come doon, great Argyle,” she cried,
“Though ye never leave a stanin’ steen o’er Airlie.

“Oh I hae bore seven pretty sons,
An’ the eighth has ne’er seen its daddy,
But if I had as many, many more,
They vid a’ be followers tae Charlie.

“If oor guid lord, he’d a-been at hame,
As he is awa’ wi’ Charlie,
I swear by the sword that hangs doon by your side
That ye daursna touch a stanin’ steen o’er Airlie.”

Bobby Eaglesham sings The Bonnie House of Airlie

It fell on a day, on a bonny summer’s day
When the sun shone bright and clearly,
That there fell oot a great dispute
Between Argyll and Airlie.

Argyll he has mustered a thousand o’ his men,
And he’s marched them in right early;
He’s marched them up by the back o’ Dunkeld,
Tae plunder the bonnie hoose of Airlie.

Lady Ogilvie she looked frae her window sae high,
And oh but she grat sairly,
To see Argyll and a’ his men
Come plunder the bonny hoose of Airlie.

“Come doon, come doon, Lady Ogilvie,” he cried:
“Come doon and kiss me fairly,
Or I swear by the hilt on my broadsword
I’ll never leave a standin’ stane in Airlie.”

“Oh I wadna come doon, ye cruel Argyll,
And I wadna kiss ye fairly;
Oh I wadna kiss, nay, false Argyll,
Though ye wadna leave a standin’ stane in Airlie.”

“Come tell me whaur your dowry is hid,
Come doon and tell me fairly.”
“l winna tell ye whaur my dowry is hid,
Though ye wadna leave a standin’ stane in Airlie.”

Oh they sought it up and they sought it doon,
And aye they sought it early;
And it was ablow yon bowling green
They found the dowry of Airlie.

“Eleven of my bairns oh I hae born
And a twelfth ne’er saw his daddie,
And though I hae gotten as many of them again,
I’d mak sure they gang and fecht for Charlie.

“Gin my guid lord had been at hame,
But he’s awa’ for Charlie,
There wadna be a Campbell in a’ Argyll
Set foot on the bonny hoose of Airlie.”

He’s ta’en her by the milk-white hand,
But he didna lead her fairly;
And he’s led her up to the top o’ the hill,
Where she saw the burnin’ doon o’ Airlie.

The smoke and the flames they rose so high
And the walls they blackened fairly;
And the lady’s laid her doon on the green grass to die
When she saw the burnin’ doon o’ Airlie.

Stanley Robertson sings The Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie

It fell upon a day on a bonnie summer’s day
When the clans were awa wi Chairlie
That there fell oot a great dispute between Argyll and Airlie
That there fell oot a great dispute between Argyll and Airlie.

The Duke o Montrose has written tae Argyll
Tae meet him in the mornin early
An lead his men tae the back o Dunkeld
Tae plunder the bonnie hoose o Airlie.

Argyll he has taen a hundred o his men
A hundred o his men an mairly
An he’s awa tae yon green shaw
For to plunder the bonnie hoose o Airlie.

The lady looked ower her high castle wa
An oh, but she greived maist sairly
When she sa Argyll and aa o his men
Come tae plunder the bonnie hoose o Airlie.

Come doon, come doon, Lady Margaret, he cried
Come doon, come doon, Lady Airlie
Or I’ll swear by the brand that I haud in ma han
That I winnae leave a stannin stane in Airlie.

I’ll no come doon, ye prood Argyll
Till ye speak mair fairly
Though ye swear by the brand that ye haud in yer hand
That ye winnae leave a stannin stane in Airlie.

Had my guid Lord been at hame
But he’s awa wi Charlie
There’s no a Campbell in aa Argyll
Wid hae dared trod the bonnie green o Airlie.

For seeven bonnie bairnies hiv I born
The last ne’er seen his daddy
An had I seeven ither sons
They’d aa be men for Chairlie.

But since I can haud oot nae mair
My hand I offer ye fairly
So lead me doon tae yon low, low glen
That I winna see the burnin doon o Airlie.

He’s taen her by the hand, by the lily-white hand
But he’s taen her maist unfairly
He led her up tae a high hill top
Far she sa the burnin doon o Airlie.

Oh, clouds o smoke an clouds o flame
Greived her hairt maist sairly
An she lay doon on the hill tae dee
When she saw the burnin doon o Airlie.

What lowe is yon, cried brave Lochiel
That rises this morning early?
By the god o my kin, cried the young Ogilvie
It’s ma ane bonnie hoose o Airlie.

It’s no ma bonnie hoose, nor ma lands aa rieht
That greive my hairt maist sairly
It’s ma winsome wife an ma bonnie bairns
They will smoor in the dark reek o Airlie

It’s ma winsome wife an ma bonnie bairns
For they’ll smoor in the dark reek o Airlie.
Then draa yer dirk, cried brave Lochiel
Draa yer sword, cried Chairlie.

An we’ll kindle sic a lowe roon the fause Argyll
An we’ll licht it wi burnin spark o Airlie
Well we’ll kindle sic a lowe roon the fause Argyll
An we’ll licht it wi burnin spark o Airlie.

Kate Rusby sings The Bonnie House of Airlie

It fell on a day, a bonnie bonnie day,
When the corn grew green and yellow,
That there fell out a great dispute
Between Argyll and Airlie.

The lady was looking over the castle wall,
And oh but she looks weary,
And there she spies the great Argyll
Come to plunder the bonnie house of Airlie.

“Come down the stairs, lady,“ he said,
“Come down and kiss me fairly.”
“I’ll not come down nor kiss you,” she said,
“Though you won’t leave a standing stone at Airlie.”

He’s taken her by her left shoulder
and oh but she looks weary.
He led her to the top of the town,
Made her watch the plundering of Airlie.

“Fire on, fire on, my many men all
And see that you fire clearly.
I vow and I swear by this broadsword I wear
I won’t leave a standing stone at Airlie.”

“If the great Sir John had been but at home,
As he is this night wi’ Prince Charlie,
Neither Argyll nor any Scottish Lord
Dare have plundered the bonnie house of Airlie.

“Seven, seven sons I’ve born unto him
And the eigth ne’er saw his daddy.
If I were to bear a hundred more
They’d all draw sword for Prince Charlie.
Oh, if I were to bear a hundred more
They’d all draw sword for Prince Charlie.”

Jon Boden sings The Bonnie House of Airlie

It fell on a day and a bright summer’s day,
When the corn grew green and yellow,
There fell out a great dispute
Between Argyll and Airlie.

The Duke of Montrose he has written to Argyll
To come in the morning so early
And to lead his men by the back of Dunkeld
And to plunder the bonnie house of Airlie.

The lady looked out of the window so high
And oh and she looked weary,
For there she spied the great Argyll
Come to plunder the bonnie house of Airlie.

“Come down, come down, Lady Margaret,“ he said,
“Come down and kiss me fairly,
Or by the morning’s clear daylight
I will not leave a standing stone in Airlie.”

“Oh I would not kiss thee, great Argyll,
And I would not kiss the fairly.
I would not kiss thee, great Argyll,
Though you didn’t leave a standing stone in Airlie.”

He has taken her by her left shoulder,
He says, “Madam where is your dowry?”
“Well it’s up and it’s down the bonny burnside
All among the planting of Airlie.”

Oh they searched east and they searched west
And they searched late and early.
They found it in the bonny burnside
All among the planting of Airlie.”

He has taken her by the middle so small
And oh and she cried sorely.
And he has laid her down on the green, green grass
And he has plundered the bonny house of Airlie.

“Oh I have eleven broad sons,” she cried,
“And the youngest has never seen his daddy.
But if I had this many more
I would give them all to King Charlie.

“And if my good lord he had been at home
And not been with King Charlie,
Well there’s never a Campbell from out of the west
Could plunder he bonny house of Airlie.”