The Duke of Buccleuch, who has died aged 83, was the largest private landowner in Britain, though his lifetime witnessed the transition from near feudal wealth and deference to a tough egalitarianism.

While he succeeded in keeping his estates intact he lived to see the Scot-tish parliament weaken private landowners through land reform legislation at a time when the influence of the aristocracy had been diminished by Labour's abolishing the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords.