Painting of Lady Nairne (1766-1845) with her son...
Painting of Lady Nairne (1766-1845) with her son (1808-1837) - By Sir John Watson Gordon
Lady Nairne (1766-1845) wrote some of Scotland's most famous songs, based on traditional airs. She was born into one of the country's most staunchly Jacobite families and given the christian name Carolina, the feminine form of Charles, as a mark of devotion to Prince Charles Edward Stewart (Charles Edward Stuart or Bonnie Prince Charlie) who had been forced into exile twenty years earlier.
William (1808-1837) succeeded his father as Lord Nairne in 1829. His health had always been delicate and in Watson Gordon's portrait he seems to clasp his mother for support. He spent time with her in France, Italy and Switzerland in an attempt to improve his health, but he died in Brussels in 1837 at the age of twenty-nine.
Much of her work was inspired by the example of Robert Burns's adaptation of older songs. She shunned the limelight, publishing her songs in The Scottish Minstrel under the name, 'Mrs Bogan of Bogan'. These were re-published after her death as Lays of Strathearn and included many that are still well known: the lament for Prince Charles, 'Will ye no'come back again', 'Charlie is my darling', The Land o' the Leal', 'Caller Herrin'' and 'The Laird o' Cockpen'.
