Act of Union 1707

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 Formation of the United Kingdom 
Acts of Union (1536-1543)
Act of Union (1707)
Act of Union (1800)
Government of Ireland Act (1920)
Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921)

The Acts of Union were twin Acts of Parliament passed in 1707 (taking effect on 26 March) by the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The acts were the implementation of the Treaty of Union, negotiated between the two kingdoms. The effect of the Acts was twofold:

  • to create a new state: the Kingdom of Great Britain, although the name had been used on occasion since 1603 when speaking of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland together, which had shared a monarch from that date but retained sovereign parliaments. Wales was also part of this Great Britain since it had been absorbed by England by the Acts of Union 1536-1543.
  • to dissolve both parliaments and replace them with a new Parliament of Great Britain. (Although the new parliament was to be based in the former home of the English Parliament.)
Walter Thomas Monnington's 1925 painting called Parliamentary Union of England and Scotland 1707 hangs in the Palace of Westminster depicting the official presentation of the law that formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
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Walter Thomas Monnington's 1925 painting called Parliamentary Union of England and Scotland 1707 hangs in the Palace of Westminster depicting the official presentation of the law that formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

While there had been three earlier attempts to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, these were the first Acts which had the will of both political establishments behind them, albeit for rather different reasons. 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. In the Scottish case, the purpose was partly to use English subsidies to recover from the financial problems caused by the failure of the Darién scheme and partly to remove English trade sanctions put in place through the Alien Act to force the Scottish Parliament into compliance with the Act of Settlement.

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 on the day it was signed. There was widespread bribery of members of the Scottish Parliament but this was not an uncommon practice of the time.

The twin 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 established 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."

See also

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