Overview

Until the early 17th century England and Scotland were two entirely independent kingdoms.

In March 1625 James VI and I died and was succeeded by his son Charles I.

On 14 May 1660 Charles II was formally restored to his kingdoms and proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland.

The idea of a union between England and Scotland was aired in February and March 1689 during the deliberations of the Convention Parliament in Edinburgh.

In February 1702 William III sent a message to both houses at Westminster urging consideration of "a firm and intire union" - a union of the two kingdoms with a single parliament.

The union commission in London was adjourned in February 1703 with plans to resume in October. But with the rise of anti-English feeling in the Scottish Parliament they had to be abandoned.

Rumours of a plot to restore the Stuarts in Scotland had increased English nervousness of an independent, Jacobite and possibly Francophile Scotland.

The Scottish Parliament assembled in Edinburgh on 28 June 1705, but for nearly a month did nothing to consider the question.

Negotiations between the English and Scottish commissioners were held at the Cockpit, one of the government buildings at Whitehall in London.

There were 25 Articles of Union which formed the basis of the two separate Acts of Union passed by the parliaments at Westminster and in Edinburgh.

In contrast to the abortive negotiations for union of 1702-3, the English this time had gone out of their way to accommodate Scottish demands, particularly over access to English trade.

On 28 January 1707, 12 days after Edinburgh ratified the Articles of Union, the Queen formally presented them for ratification to Parliament at Westminster.

Before 1706 reports of unrest and public protest against union were rare.

By agreeing to the Union the Scottish Parliament had also voted for its own extinction.

On 1 May 1707, after years of discussion and debate, England and Scotland became a single state - the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

England and Scotland were now, as described in the Act, "United into One Kingdom".

In the next few years, discontent with the Union rankled at all levels of Scottish society. Mainly because of its adverse political and economic effects on Scotland.

After the 1715 Rebellion most of Lowland Scotland, like England, accepted the Hanoverian dynasty.

By the late 18th century a British identity had been forged in the wider world.