1707

The Union of the Parliaments 1707

In 1603 Elizabeth I died and was succeeded as English ruler by James I of Scotland and so the crowns of England were joined together. The Parliaments, however, remained separate and although Cromwell tried to bring the two nations together there were still separate at the end of the seventeenth century.

Relations between England and Scotland reached their lowest point in the 1690s. The failure of the Darien Scheme was largely blamed on the lack of English cooperation. The massacre at Glencoe had revealed the brutal ruthlessness of King William's government and a series of failed harvests led to famine. Some Scots recognised that Scottish trading ambitions would always be twarted until there was an agreement to allow free trade bewteen England and Scotland.

Matters came to a head in 1703 when it was clear that there was no clear successor to Queen Anne. The English Parliament passed the Act of Succession which offerred the throne of England to the Protestant House of Hanover. The Scottish Parliament responded by passing the Act of security which said that the Scottish Parliament would decide on Anne's successor for Scotland. This raised the possibility that the deposed James II or his son would be restored to the Scottish throne. A future civil war between the two countries could not be ruled out.

Commissioner were appointed to negotiate a settlement to the crisis and much money was used to ease the process. The novelist Daniel Defoe came to Scotland as a spy and an agent to pass on subsidies to influential members of the Scottish Parliament. Offices and titles were also offered to Scottish Lords to vote for the union. The Dukes of Argyll and Queensbury represented the crown and manipulated the debates to the interests of the crown.

In 1707 the Union of Parliaments was agreed. The Scottish Parliament was united with the English, based in London. Coinage, taxation, sovereignty, trade and flag would become one. Scotland retained, her distinctive legal system based on Roman law, her Presbyterian Church and educational system based on Knox's First Book of Discipline.

The Union came into effect in May 1707.