Acts of Union 1707

The Acts of Union 1707 were parallel English and Scottish laws that dissolved the two kingdoms and established the Kingdom of Great Britain, with one parliament, from 1 May 1707.

Darien scheme: A Scottish colonial venture in Panama that failed disastrously in the late 1690s, causing severe financial losses. Its losses weakened Scotland’s finances and sharpened pressure for an agreement with England.
Treaty of Union: The 1706 agreement negotiated by English and Scottish commissioners that set out terms for the union of their kingdoms. Its articles formed the common text enacted separately by the English and Scottish parliaments.
Kingdom of Great Britain: The sovereign state formed in 1707 by uniting the kingdoms of England and Scotland under one monarch and parliament. It was the new state established by the acts.
Union of the Crowns: The 1603 union of the English and Scottish crowns under James VI and I, while the kingdoms kept separate governments. Unlike the 1707 union, it shared a monarch without merging the kingdoms’ legislatures.
English Parliament: The legislature of the Kingdom of England before 1707, comprising the House of Lords and the House of Commons. It passed the English legislation that enacted the negotiated union terms.
Act of Settlement 1701: An English statute that secured the Protestant succession by designating Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant heirs. It exposed the risk that England and Scotland might choose different monarchs after Queen Anne.
Parliament of Great Britain: The legislature created in 1707 by combining the English and Scottish parliaments at Westminster. A single parliament was the union’s central constitutional change.
Jacobitism: A movement supporting the restoration of the Stuart dynasty to the British thrones after its overthrow in 1688. Opposition to the union sometimes overlapped with support for the exiled Stuart line.
Acts of Union 1800: The statutes that united Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. They extended parliamentary union to Ireland, unlike the 1707 settlement between England and Scotland.
Robert Burns: A Scottish poet of the eighteenth century, known for works including “Auld Lang Syne” and “Tam o’ Shanter.” His poem “Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation” became a lasting expression of anti-union sentiment.

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