Airlie Castle is a mansion house in the parish of

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. There is a standing stone ...

, near the junction of the Isla and Melgund rivers, 9 kilometres west of

Kirriemuir Kirriemuir, sometimes called Kirrie or the ''Wee Red Toon'' ( gd, An Ceathramh Mòr; IPA: nˈkʰʲɛɾəvmoːɾ, is a burgh in Angus, Scotland. It reaches back to earliest recorded times, when it is thought to have been a major ecclesiastical ...

Angus, Scotland Angus ( sco, Angus; gd, Aonghas) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include agr ...

. A castle was built on the site in c. 1432 and was burnt out in 1640, with a mansion house built incorporating and on top of some of the ruins in c. 1792–93, and occupied today. The house and the stables are Category B

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s and the grounds are included in the

Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland The ''Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland'' is a listing of gardens and designed landscapes of national artistic and/or historical significance, in Scotland. The Inventory was originally compiled in 1987, although it is a conti ...

History

King

James I of Scotland James I (late July 139421 February 1437) was King of Scots from 1406 until his assassination in 1437. The youngest of three sons, he was born in Dunfermline Abbey to King Robert III and Annabella Drummond. His older brother David, Duke of Ro ...

granted lands to Walter Ogilvy of Lintrathen,

Lord High Treasurer of Scotland The Treasurer was a senior post in the pre- Union government of Scotland, the Privy Council of Scotland. Lord Treasurer The full title of the post was ''Lord High Treasurer, Comptroller, Collector-General and Treasurer of the New Augmentation'', ...

, in 1432. Walter Ogilvy then built the castle at the confluence of the River Isla and the Melgam Water. It sits on a raised position with a steep 400 ft drop to the rivers below. A moat on the eastern approach further protected the castle. It became a stronghold and chief residence of the Ogilvies.

James Ogilvy, 5th Lord Ogilvy of Airlie James Ogilvy, 5th Lord Ogilvy of Airlie (died 1606) was a Scottish landowner and diplomat. Life Ogilvy was the son of James, Master of Ogilvy, and Katherine Campbell, Countess of Crawford, a daughter of Sir John Campbell of Cawdor. His father, th ...

planned to rebuild the castle in 1564.Contract with George Nicholson for building 'the foyr quarters of Airly', National Records of Scotland, online catalogue, NRS GD16/27/6. The castle consisted of a rectangular courtyard with walls three metres thick. The east wall of the original courtyard still stands; it is about 36 metres long and 9 metres tall. An entrance gateway that now has a square tower on it sits at the north end of this wall, though the tower was built later than the original courtyard. In 1639 at York

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

created

James Ogilvy James Robert Bruce Ogilvy (born 29 February 1964) is a British landscape designer, and the founder and editor of ''Luxury Briefing''. He is a relative of the British royal family as the elder child and only son of Angus Ogilvy, Sir Angus Ogilvy ...

the 1st

Earl of Airlie Earl of Airlie is a title of the peerage in Scotland created on 2 April 1639 for James Ogilvy, 7th Lord Ogilvy of Airlie, along with the title “Lord Ogilvy of Alith and Lintrathen.” The title “Lord Ogilvy of Airlie” was then created o ...

. James refused to sign the

National Covenant The National Covenant () was an agreement signed by many people of Scotland during 1638, opposing the proposed reforms of the Church of Scotland (also known as ''The Kirk'') by King Charles I. The king's efforts to impose changes on the church i ...

. Furthermore, during the

Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of related conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, then separate entities united in a pers ...

the Ogilvies supported King Charles I and the

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

cause. Parliamentarian troops under the command of

Archibald Campbell, 8th Earl of Argyll Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, 8th Earl of Argyll, Chief of Clan Campbell (March 160727 May 1661) was a Scottish nobleman, politician, and peer. The ''de facto'' head of Scotland's government during most of the conflict of the 1640s and ...

destroyed the castle in 1640; the ballad "The Bonnie Hoose o' Airlie" describes the incident. Campbell also burnt the Ogilvies' castles at Craig and Forter. The Ogilvies did not rebuild Airlie Castle. James Ogilvy (d. 1731), the grandson of the first Earl, took part in the

Jacobite rising of 1715 The Jacobite rising of 1715 ( gd, Bliadhna Sheumais ; or 'the Fifteen') was the attempt by James Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender) to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts The House of Stuart, ori ...

and was

attainted In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditary ...

; consequently, on his father's death in 1717, he was not allowed to succeed to the earldom, although he was pardoned in 1725.

George II George II or 2 may refer to: People * George II of Antioch (seventh century AD) * George II of Armenia (late ninth century) * George II of Abkhazia (916–960) * Patriarch George II of Alexandria (1021–1051) * George II of Georgia (1072–1089) * ...

confiscated the castle. In 1778 David Ogilvy too received a pardon and he returned to Scotland from exile in

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

. He had a new mansion built between 1792 and 1793 that incorporated the parts of the Castle that were still standing.

History

Citations

See also