When Robert Burns lampooned the aristocracy in his masterly song evoking the dignity of all men, regardless of birth and wealth, the Highlands were in ferment. What became known as the Clearances – the brutal removal of families from their modest, stone homes to make way for sheep – unleashed a lingering bitterness. It is etched deeply in the collective psyche of many Scots.

From an English perspective, the powerful emotions aroused by this dark period in Scottish history 200 years ago seem to barely register. It is still sometimes portrayed as the British establishment versus the Highland masses through the all-powerful lairds, or landed class. It also generates an enduring sense of injustice – much stronger than any emotional fallout from the Enclosures (see Chapter Two) – and a continuing need to right some terrible wrongs by addressing the use, abuse and, crucially, the ownership of land.

Significantly, when a seemingly radical Scottish National Party (SNP) government late in 2014 promised another round of land reform, ministers evoked ‘historical baggage’ – a euphemism for the Clearances – to put their case into context. Central to this is the oftquoted estimate from the land reform campaigner Andy Wightman that 432 owners account for 50% of privately held land in Scotland. Furthermore, 83% of the country’s land is held privately, with the remainder owned by public organisations such as the Forestry Commission, the Scottish government and the (soon-to-be-devolved) Scottish element of the Crown Estate.

Likewise, sections of the landowning class similarly evoked ‘historical baggage’, albeit pejoratively, when, to their horror, the SNP government subsequently laid out its land reform agenda. It wants legislation:

• • to intervene if the scale of landownership, and the conduct of a landowner, is considered a ‘barrier to sustainable development’;

• • to establish a permanent Land Reform Commission to maintain momentum, while strengthening the ability of tenant farmers to buy their holdings;

• • to amend the rights of succession so that landowners can no longer leave their estates to a single heir, bringing Scotland into line with European countries that adopted Napoleonic codes after the French Revolution; and

• • to reintroduce business rates on sporting estates to help fund a doubling of community landownership, from 500,000 to 1 million acres, and thus create a ‘fairer and more equitable’ distribution of land.