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Acts of Union 1707

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500-1750

                     Personal and legislative unions of the
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   Flag of England Flag of Scotland   Acts of Union ( 1707)
   Flag of United Kingdom Flag of Republic of Ireland   Act of Union (
   1801)
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   The Acts of Union were a pair of Acts of Parliament passed in 1706 and
   1707 (taking effect on 1 May 1707) by, respectively, the Parliament of
   England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts were the
   implementation of the Treaty of Union negotiated between the two
   states.

   The Acts created a new state, the Kingdom of Great Britain, by merging
   the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. The two countries
   had shared a monarch since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, but had
   retained sovereign parliaments.

   The Acts of Union dissolved both parliaments and replaced them with a
   new Parliament of Great Britain, based at Westminster, the former home
   of the English Parliament. This is referred to as the Union of the
   Parliaments.

Background

     * Treaty of Perpetual Peace (1502)
     * Treaty of Greenwich
     * Union of England and Scotland Act 1603 c. 2
     * Union of England and Scotland Act 1605 c. 3
     * Union of England and Scotland Act 1606 c. 1
     * Pacification, England and Scotland Act 1640 c. 17
     * Union between England and Scotland Act 1670 c. 9
     * Union between England and Scotland Act 1702 c. 8
     * Union of England and Scotland Act 1704 c. 6
     * Union of England and Scotland Act 1705 c. 15
     * Act for a Treaty with England 1705 c. 50
     * Union with Scotland Act 1706 c. 11
     * Union with England Act 1707 c.7

   While there had been several preceding attempts to unite the two
   countries by peace treaties and Acts of Parliament, this "Acts of Union
   1707" was the first Act that had the will of both political
   establishments behind them, albeit for rather different reasons.
   Scotland's Parliament had previously issued several Acts of Sovereignty
   between the peace treaties and Acts of Union with England, effects of
   which were to prolong conventions of the Auld Alliance, as a defence
   mechanism to avoid the implications of the Treaty of Westminster (1461)
   and further wars of Scottish Independence.

   In the English case, the purpose was to establish the Royal succession
   along Protestant lines in the same manner as provided for by the
   English Act of Settlement 1701, rather than that of the Scottish Act of
   Security 1704. The two countries had shared a king for much of the
   previous century. The English were now concerned that an independent
   Scotland with a different king, even if he were a Protestant, might
   make alliances against England. In the Scottish case, it was claimed
   that union would enable Scotland to recover from the financial disaster
   wrought by the Darien scheme through English assistance and the lifting
   of measures put in place through the Alien Act to force the Scottish
   Parliament into compliance with the Act of Settlement.

   The treaty consisted of 25 articles, 15 of which were economic in
   character. In Scotland, each article was voted on separately and
   several clauses in articles were delegated to specialised
   subcommittees. Article 1 of the treaty was based on the political
   principle of an incorporating union and this was secured by a majority
   of 116 votes to 83 on 4 November 1706. In order to minimise the
   opposition of the Church of Scotland, an Act was also passed to secure
   the Presbyterian establishment of the Church, after which the Church
   stopped its open opposition, although hostility remained at lower
   levels of the clergy. The treaty as a whole was finally ratified on 16
   January 1707 by a majority of 110 votes to 69.

   The ultimate securing of the treaty in the unicameral Scottish
   Parliament can be attributed more to the weakness and lack of cohesion
   between the various opposition groups in the House as opposed to the
   strength of pro-incorporationists. The combined votes of the Court
   party with a majority of the Squadrone Volante were sufficient to
   ensure the final passage of the treaty through the House. Many
   Commissioners had invested heavily in the Darien Scheme and they
   believed that they would receive compensation for their losses; Article
   14, the Equivalent granted GBP398,085 10 s to Scotland to offset future
   liability towards the English national debt. In essence, it was also
   used as a means of compensation for investors in the Darien Scheme.

   Bribery was also prevalent. £20,000 (£240,000 Scots) was dispatched to
   Scotland for distribution by the Earl of Glasgow. James Douglas, 2nd
   Duke of Queensberry, the Queen's Commissioner in Parliament, received
   £12,325, the majority of the funding. To many Scots, this amounted to
   little more than a bribe. Robert Burns describing it as

          We were bought and sold for English Gold,
          Sic a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.

   Some of this was used to hire spies, such as Daniel Defoe; his first
   reports were of vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against
   the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind," he reported, "for
   every Scot in favour there is 99 against". Years later John Clerk of
   Penicuik, originally a leading Unionist, wrote in his memoirs that,

          (Defoe) was a spy among us, but not known as such, otherwise the
          Mob of Edinburgh would pull him to pieces.

   Defoe recalls that he was hired by Robert Harley.

   The Acts of Union were far from universally popular in Scotland,
   particularly amongst the general population. Many petitions were sent
   to the Scottish Parliament against Union, and there were massive
   protests in Edinburgh and several other Scottish burghs on the day it
   was passed, as threats of widespread civil unrest resulted in the
   imposition of martial law by the Parliament. Sir George Lockhart of
   Carnwath, a Jacobite and the only member of the Scottish negotiating
   team who was not pro-incorporation, noted that `The whole nation
   appears against the Union'. Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, an ardent
   pro-unionist and Union negotiator, observed that the treaty was
   `contrary to the inclinations of at least three-fourths of the
   Kingdom'. Public opinion against the Treaty as it passed through the
   Scottish Parliament was voiced through petitions from Scottish
   localities. Anti-union petitions were received from shires, burghs,
   presbyteries and parishes. The Convention of Royal Burghs also
   petitioned against the Union and not one petition in favour of an
   incorporating union was received by Parliament. On the day the treaty
   was signed, the carilloner in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, rang the
   bells in the tune Why should I be so sad on my wedding day?

   The two Acts incorporated provisions for Scotland to send
   representative peers from the Peerage of Scotland to sit in the House
   of Lords. It guaranteed that the Church of Scotland would remain the
   national church in Scotland, that the Court of Session would "remain in
   all time coming within Scotland", and that Scots law would "remain in
   the same force as before". Other provisions included the restatement of
   the Act of Settlement 1701 and the ban on Roman Catholics from taking
   the throne. It also created a customs union and monetary union.

   The Act provided that any "laws and statutes" that were "contrary to or
   inconsistent with the terms" of the Act would "cease and become void."

Short term problems and long term benefits

   For the very simple reason that the two parliaments had evolved along
   different lines, contradictions and teething troubles were frequent.
   For example, the English doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty in all
   aspects of national life did not exist in Scotland, and the Scottish
   Parliament was unicameral, not bicameral. Most of the pre-Union
   traditions of Westminster continued, while those of Scotland were
   forgotten or ignored.

   Defoe drew upon his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the
   whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he actually
   admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland, which
   he had predicted as a consequence of the Union, was "not the case, but
   rather the contrary", and that the hostility towards his party was,
   "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were
   almost universally exclaimed against".

   Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a vehement critic of the Union, said in An
   Account of a Conversation, that Scotland suffered "...the miserable and
   languishing condition of all places that depend upon a remote seat of
   government."

A new Scottish Parliament

   In 1999, after almost three centuries, a Scottish Parliament was opened
   after a referendum in Scotland. The new parliament does not have the
   same powers as the old parliament, as Scotland remains a constituent
   member country of the United Kingdom.

300th anniversary

   A commemorative two-pound coin will be issued to mark the 300th
   anniversary of the Union, which occurs 2 days before the Scottish
   Parliament general election on 3 May 2007.

   The Scottish Executive have announced plans for a year-long
   commemoration including an education project led by the Royal
   Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, an
   exhibition of Union-related objects and documents at the National
   Museums of Scotland and an exhibition of portraits of people associated
   with the Union at the National Galleries of Scotland.
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