Lady Carolina Nairne (1766–1845)

Carolina Oliphant was born in Gask, Perthshire, the daughter of a Scottish Jacobite family. She is said to have been named in honor of Bonnie Prince Charlie, Charles Stuart. Her beauty earned her the nickname "the Flower of Strathearn." In 1806, she married her second cousin Major William Murray Nairne, who later became Lord Nairne; the couple had a son, William. Greatly interested in the folksong traditions of her native country, Lady Nairne undertook to produce a collection to preserve and foster them; to this she contributed some 87 of her own original songs. The work remained unpublished until 1821 when she began to publish under the pseudonym "Mrs Bogan of Bogan" in the Scottish Minstrel magazine in Edinburgh. Although many of the songs were popular for years, the best remembered today is "Annie Laurie," sometimes incorrectly assumed to have been written by Robert Burns. She also wrote such classics as "Will Ye No' Come Back Again" and "Charlie is My Darlin."