Trouble with these lairds was some of their sons being educated in England or getting commissions in the army and becoming completely Anglified, some became Episcopalians and no longer attended the Kirk anyhow yet as Heritors of a parish they had the right to exercise their patronage and appoint its minister.
This interference was one of the principal causes of the Disruption of the 1840's with many ministers and members joining the Free Church of Scotland. In some cases only the kilted gentry & their servants & tenants were left in the Kirk.
The country people only got the lairds off their back by the Crofters Acts of 1886, the so-called "Crofters Magna Carta", by which they had guaranteed security of tenure, a fair rent and compensation for improvements on leaving. Their new-found freedom was put to the test in 1888 in Shetland when two lairds claimed their centuries old right to a third of 300 whales driven ashore in a voe, this challenge went to the Sheriff Court in Lerwick which the people won but the lairds tried their hand at the Court of Session and lost again!
Thankfully folk no longer eat whales in Scotland or use whale-oil, and its the kilted lairds themselves might need a preservation order.
Bests,
Skoosh.