Clan Ogilvie

Origins and History

The Ogilvies take their name from the barony of Ogilvie in Angus — a place name of uncertain but ancient origin. The family is recorded in Angus from the twelfth century, when Gilbert de Ogilvy held lands in the region under the feudal system that was transforming Scotland in the reign of David I. From this base in Angus, the Ogilvies became one of the most powerful families in the east of Scotland, holding the hereditary office of Sheriff of Angus and later acquiring the Earldom of Airlie.

The Earldom of Airlie, created in 1639, gave the Ogilvies one of Scotland's newer but proudly held titles. The Ogilvie seat at Airlie Castle in the Angus glens was famously burned by the Earl of Argyll during the Civil War of the 1640s — an act of destruction commemorated in the Scots ballad "The Bonnie House o' Airlie," one of the most moving of all Scottish historical songs. The Ogilvies never forgot this assault, and their enmity with the Campbells ran through Scottish history for generations.

The Jacobite Ogilvies

The Ogilvies were steadfast Jacobites. At the rising of 1715, the Airlie family declared for the Stuarts and paid the price in forfeiture. At the '45, David Ogilvie (later 5th Earl of Airlie) raised a regiment for Prince Charles Edward Stuart and served throughout the campaign. After Culloden, he escaped to France — the Airlie earldom was again forfeited, not to be restored until 1826. The Ogilvie story at Culloden is one of the most dramatic of all clan histories in that final Jacobite campaign.

Saint John Ogilvie — Scotland's Reformation martyr

John Ogilvie (1579–1615) was a member of the Ogilvie family who converted from Calvinism to Catholicism, became a Jesuit priest, and returned to Scotland to minister secretly to Catholics during the fierce Protestant suppression of the early seventeenth century. Arrested in Glasgow in 1613, he was tortured and tried for refusing to acknowledge the king's spiritual authority over the Church. He was hanged and disembowelled in Glasgow in 1615. Beatified in 1929 and canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1976, he is the only saint to have been canonised in Scotland since the Reformation — and Scotland's only post-Reformation saint.

Notable Ogilvies

• Saint John Ogilvie — Jesuit priest martyred in Glasgow in 1615 — Scotland's only post-Reformation saint, canonised 1976
• David Ogilvie, 5th Earl of Airlie — Jacobite commander who raised a regiment for Prince Charles Edward Stuart in 1745
• Angus Ogilvy — Scottish businessman, husband of Princess Alexandra and member of the British royal family