[1] For Ogilvy's support of the royalist cause, during the struggle between the court and the Scottish Presbyterians, Charles I created him Earl of Airlie by patent dated at York 2 April 1639.
During the Bishops' War he suffered severely, with his estates wasted and his houses razed to the ground.
In the following year he and his three sons joined James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose; they were consequently forfeited by parliament on 11 February 1645, exempted from pardon in the treaty of Westminster, and excommunicated by the Church of Scotland on 27 July 1647.
[1] Ogilvy obtained on 23 July 1646 an assurance and remission from Major-general John Middleton, who was authorised to pacify the north of Scotland in this way.
One daughter, Isabel, enabled her brother James to escape from the castle of St. Andrews on the eve of his intended execution; she died unmarried.