The Gilded Fleece

By: Nigel Tranter

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

After the Jacobite Rising of 1745, in which the Highland clans took part, the clan system was destroyed and the relationship between the Chief of the clan and the people changed from a communal one to that of landlord and tenant. The “Clearances” of the Highlands took place between 1785 and 1850 and refer to the removal of the clanspeople to make way for large scale sheep farming. Some were resettled on marginal coastal land and some forced to emigrate, to the south or overseas. The process was sometimes brutal. This is the engrossing story of the Clearance of the Clann Varish from the Wester Ross lands of the Earl of Alcaster. He had inherited the estate from his grandmother. At his Worcestershire estate, he appointed Adam Metcalfe to journey to the north as his Deputy-Commissioner to assist his factor in the removal of the people to make way for sheep. When Adam Metcalfe arrived there, he found that he did not approve of what was happening and then acted as he could on behalf of the people. In the end he lost everything, including his heart, and went to a new life in Canada with the people.