Acts of Union 1707: England and Scotland Become Great Britain

The Acts of Union 1707 joined the kingdoms of England and Scotland into a single state, the Kingdom of Great Britain, from 1 May 1707. Passed by the English and Scottish parliaments after a treaty negotiated in 1706, they replaced two parliaments with one at Westminster while leaving Scotland its own law and church. The Union was born out of economic crisis, dynastic politics and war, and it remained controversial in Scotland from the start.

Background: one crown, two kingdoms

Since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, the two countries had shared a monarch. They nevertheless kept separate parliaments, laws, churches, taxes and trade policies. English navigation laws treated Scotland as a foreign country, shutting Scottish merchants out of trade with England’s colonies.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 strengthened both parliaments. It also left a lasting problem: Scotland’s Parliament could now take a more independent line in foreign policy and the succession to the throne, which worried English ministers fighting long wars against France.

The Darien disaster

In 1695 the Scottish Parliament created the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. Its most ambitious project was a colony at Darien, on the Isthmus of Panama, intended to become a hub of world trade between the Atlantic and Pacific. Ordinary Scots, nobles and burghs subscribed heavily, and the company raised a large share of the country’s available capital.

Expeditions sailed in 1698 and 1699. The settlers were defeated by tropical disease, poor supplies, quarrels among the leaders, Spanish military pressure and the refusal of English colonies to help, on William III’s orders. By 1700 the colony had been abandoned and some 2,000 colonists had died. Estimates suggest that between a quarter and a fifth of Scotland’s liquid wealth was lost.

The failure came on top of the “ill years” of the 1690s, when repeated harvest failures caused famine in much of Scotland. Many Scots blamed England for Darien, yet the disaster also convinced influential people that Scotland could not prosper alone.

The succession crisis

The death in 1700 of Queen Anne’s last surviving child created a new problem. England’s Act of Settlement of 1701 gave the crown to the Protestant House of Hanover without consulting Scotland. The Scottish Parliament responded with the Act of Security of 1704, reserving the right to choose a different successor unless Scotland’s trade and liberties were secured.

England struck back with the Alien Act of 1705. It threatened to treat Scots as aliens and ban key Scottish exports, such as cattle, linen and coal, unless Scotland agreed to negotiate a union or accepted the Hanoverian succession. Faced with this pressure, the Scottish Parliament authorised commissioners to negotiate.

Negotiating and passing the treaty

Commissioners from both kingdoms, all chosen by the Crown, met in London from April 1706. They agreed 25 articles, signed on 22 July 1706. The English refused a federal arrangement and insisted on an “incorporating” union with one parliament. The Scottish commissioners, mostly supporters of the court, accepted this in exchange for economic guarantees, and the talks moved quickly.

Scotland was given 45 members in the House of Commons and 16 elected representative peers in the House of Lords. It received free trade with England and its colonies, and a payment of £398,085 10s, known as the Equivalent, partly to compensate Darien investors and to offset Scotland’s share of England’s national debt.

The treaty was debated article by article in the Scottish Parliament from October 1706. Article I, creating the united kingdom, passed on 4 November 1706 by 116 votes to 83. Outside, crowds rioted in Edinburgh, Glasgow saw unrest, and petitions against the Union arrived from many parts of the country. A separate act guaranteed the Presbyterian government of the Church of Scotland, which won over many waverers.

The opposition was divided. Jacobites hoped the Union’s failure would bring back the exiled Stuarts, while Presbyterian opponents feared for their church, and the two groups distrusted each other. Government managers also made skilful use of patronage. Money from England was used to pay salary arrears to members, and some of it found its way to waverers, which later fuelled charges of bribery. A group of members known as the Squadrone Volante, the “flying squadron”, supported the treaty, partly because Darien investors stood to be compensated from the Equivalent.

On 16 January 1707 the Scottish Parliament ratified the treaty by 110 votes to 69. The English Parliament passed its own act soon afterwards, and Queen Anne gave her assent in March 1707.

Key people

Queen Anne (reigned 1702–1714) strongly wanted the Union and was the last monarch of Scotland and England as separate kingdoms. James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, the Queen’s commissioner in Edinburgh, steered the treaty through. James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Seafield, the chancellor, was another key supporter.

Opponents included Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, who argued for limits on royal power and a federal settlement, and James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton, who led the opposition but failed to organise an effective walkout. In London, Sidney Godolphin, the Lord Treasurer, managed the English side, while the writer Daniel Defoe worked in Edinburgh as an English agent and propagandist.

Consequences and legacy

Scotland gained access to England’s markets and growing empire, and in the longer run Scots played a major part in British trade, government, the army and the empire. The benefits were slow to appear, however. New taxes such as the malt tax caused anger, and opposition to the Union fed support for the Jacobite cause in the Jacobite rising of 1715.

Some changes were immediate. The Scottish Privy Council was abolished in 1708, and customs and excise officers enforced English-style duties, which encouraged widespread smuggling. A motion in the House of Lords to dissolve the Union was defeated by only four proxy votes in 1713.

Later critics accused the Scottish politicians of selling their country. Robert Burns famously wrote of men “bought and sold for English gold”. Modern historians accept that money and offices eased the passage of the treaty, but most also stress genuine economic and security motives.

The Union has been revisited several times. Ireland was joined to Great Britain by the Acts of Union 1800. A devolved Scottish Parliament reopened in Edinburgh in 1999, and debate about Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom continues.

Timeline

• 1603, March: James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England, uniting the crowns.
• 1698, November: The first Darien expedition reaches the Isthmus of Panama.
• 1700, spring: The Darien colony is finally abandoned.
• 1704, August: The Scottish Act of Security receives royal assent.
• 1705, March: England passes the Alien Act.
• 1706, 22 July: Commissioners sign the 25 articles of the Treaty of Union in London.
• 1706, 4 November: The Scottish Parliament approves Article I by 116 votes to 83.
• 1707, 16 January: The Scottish Parliament ratifies the treaty by 110 votes to 69.
• 1707, 1 May: The Kingdom of Great Britain comes into existence.

Why it matters

The Acts of Union created Great Britain, one of the most powerful states of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and established the parliamentary union that still underpins the United Kingdom. They also left a lasting question about Scotland’s place within Britain that remains central to British politics.