Annotation:Katharine Oggle

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KATHARINE OGGLE/OGIE/OGGY. AKA and see "Catherine Logie," "Katherine Loggy," "Lady Catherine Ogle," "Ketrin Ogie," "Bonny Katherine Oggy." Scottish, Air. A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The air was credited to Irish harper Rory dall O'Cahan by William Grattan Flood, the Irish antiquarian in his History of Irish Music. Rory dall spent most of his life in Scotland between 1601 and 1650, known to the court of King James in that country; despite this Flood seems anxious to claim the melody as Irish in origin. Unfortunately, Grattan Flood's work is so filled with errors that it is hard to credit any unsubstantiated assertions with much veracity. "Katherine Ogle" (there are numerous spelling variations) appears earliest in the Scottish Panmure Manuscript #9454, c. 1675, Seventy Seven Dances, Songs and Scots Airs for the Violin, and was printed under this title in the Appendix (written in 1688) to Playford's Dancing Master of 1686 (a note called it "a new dance"). On the strength of the Playford publication in the Dancing Master, 1686 edition, the English collector Chappell (1859) disputes the claim of Scottish ancestry. Chappell (1859), in fact, takes virulent exception to Stenhouse's scholarship regarding this tune after the latter claimed that the air was Scottish and dated it from the year 1680 (when it was sung by Mr. John Abell at a concert in Stationers' Hall). Chappell found that the only date Abell could possibly have sung it was in 1702, and he states that the earliest printing was in the Appendix to the 7th edition of Playford's Dancing Master of 1686 (where it appears under the title "Lady Catherine Ogle"); Chappell, who claimed many Irish and Scottish airs as English, was evidently unaware of the version in the Panmure Manuscript when he accused Stenhouse of being deliberately misleading regarding its national origin. John Glen (1891 and 1900) also disagrees with Chappell, noting that Chappell's own source, John Playford, published the tune a year before it was mentioned in The Dancing Master's appendix (1688) in Apollo's Banquet (5th edition, 1687) where it is called a "Scotch Tune" in footnotes and in fact appears under the title "A Scotch Tune" only. O'Farrell (c. 1806) also listed the melody as "Scotch." J.M. Wood (The Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland, 1887) also concluded it was Scottish, "from internal evidence." It appears in one of the earliest Scottish fiddler's manuscript repertory books, c. 1705, in the private collection of Frances Collinson (1971). Early Scottish printed versions include the Guthrie Manuscript (c. 1675) and the Leyden Manuscript (c. 1692, though not the exact version given by Playford). The air appears in full in the Guthrie Manuscript, which was named for covenenting minister James Guthrie of Stirling, beheaded in 1661 for publishing a seditious pamphlet; it appears in a book of his sermons. Mary Anne Alburger points out that he was probably no lover of dance music, and that it is possible someone sewed the music into Guthrie's book as a joke.

Later Scottish printings were in Orpheus Caledonius (1725 and 1733 editions) and in Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768). A popular song to the air was written (or rather reworked) by Thomas D'Urfey in his Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719-20) entitled "Bonny Kathern Loggy." Later versions of the air appear in The Merry Musician; or, A Cure for the Spleen (1716) and Allen Ramsey's The Tea Table Miscellany. Published editions of ballad operas which include the tune are The Quaker's Opera (1731), Polly (1729), The Beggar's Wedding (1729), Pattie and Peggie (1730), The Lover's Opera (1730) and The Highland Fair (1731). Later it was used by the poet Robert Burns as the vehicle for his song "Highland Mary" and appears in the Scots Musical Museum (No. 164).

Lady Catherine Ogle was a real personage, who in 1591 married Sir Charles Cavendish of Stoke and Welbeck Abbey (c. 1553-1617), his second wife. They lived in Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire. She was born around 1570 and was the daughter of Cuthbert Ogle, 7th Lord Ogle, in Northumberland. Catherine inherited the barony of Ogle (she was the 8th Baroness), which then passed into the Cavendish family. The Cavendishes were "new money" of the era, having been minor gentry until Bess of Hardwick (Charles Cavendish's mother and the countess of Shrewsbury) transformed their fortunes through marriage and the shrewd promotion of her sons, until they were immensely rich. Sir Charles and Catherine are buried in the church of St. Mary in a sepulchral monument that covers the south wall of the Cavendish Chapel at Bolsover.

In America the melody appears in the music manuscript copybook of Henry Livingston, Jr. Livingston purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he was a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery's invasion of Canada in a failed attempt to wrest Quebec from British control. An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley, and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a poet and musician, and presumably a dancer, as he was elected a Manager for the New York Assembly's dancing season of 1774-1775, along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of Governor of New York. It also appears in the manuscript collection of Captain George Bush, begun in 1779. Bush was a fiddler who was for a time on George Washington's staff.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Johnson (The Kitchen Musician No. 14: Songs, Airs and Dances of the 18th Century), 1997; p. 11. McGibbon (Scots Tunes, book II), c. 1746; p. 44. Morison (Highland Airs and Quicksteps, vol. 2), c. 1882; No. 43, p. 28. O'Farrell (Pocket Companion, vol. II), c. 1806; p. 94.

Recorded sources: Flying Fish, Robin Williamson - "Legacy of the Scottish Harpers, vol. 2."

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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