Carolina Nairne, Baroness Nairne

Carolina Nairne, Baroness Nairne (born Aug. 16, 1766, Gask, Perth, Scot.—died Oct. 26, 1845, Gask) was a Scottish songwriter and laureate of Jacobitism, who wrote “Charlie Is My Darling,” “The Hundred Pipers,” “The Land o’ the Leal,” and “Will Ye No’ Come Back Again?”

The daughter of a Jacobite laird, Laurence Oliphant, who was exiled (1745–63), she followed Robert Burns’s example of writing in the folk tradition. Her songs helped to create the myth that the Stuart cause was the cause of the common people. She married Major William Nairne, who became 5th Baron Nairne of Nairne upon the restoration of titles of Jacobite families in 1824. Her songs first appeared in The Scottish Minstrel (1821–24) under the pseudonym of Mrs. Bogan of Bogan. Their gentle pathos and occasional wit appealed to all tastes, and the songs soon found their way back into the folk repertory. A collected edition, Lays from Strathearn (1846), appeared after her death.