The Scottish Case

Up until March 24, 1603 (the date of Queen Elizabeth I's death) England and Scotland, two kingdoms on the same islands, were completely separate, with different capitals, different allies, and most importantly, different allies. On that date, King James VI of Scotland, the heir-apparent due to some daft English politics, was proclaimed the King of England as well, with the regnal title King James I.

The independence that Scotland enjoyed up through this date was a source of national pride. For hundreds of years the people of Scotland had fought to preserve their independce from England. Their national heroes were wrought from these wars, and their kings were descendents of the wars' victors.

For over one hundred years the Stuart Kings ruled both independent nations, each with its own parliament and capital. However, on May 1, 1707, Queen Anne's Act of Union came into effect. The Act of Union was law passed by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. It merged the two nations and the two parliaments, and joined their monarchs under one crown, creating Great Britain or the United Kingdom. Scottish opposition to the Act was strong, but it nonetheless passed through the Edinburgh based parliament. England and Scotland were both still considered sovereign states by the Act, but they could exert no independent initiative. They wholly acted as Great Britain, with its capital and parliament very far from Scotland in London.


For nearly 300 years, until 1999 Scotland had no parliament. All decisions were made in London. However, due to nationalist sentiments, Tony Blair spearheaded the campaign for the establishment of a new Scottish Parliament, which now sits in Edinburgh with jurisdiction over domestic affairs.

The people of Scotland feel as if they were taken over by England. History stands in the face of this assumption, but nonetheless the sentiment persists. When James became the first monarch of both nations he explicitly intended to bring Scotland under English auspices. Although legally they are wholly independent nations of each other, governance for Scotland, for the majority of the last 300 years has been based in England. English kings and queens now rule the Scottish country. Although the ascension of a Scottish King on to the English throne makes it seem nearly as if Scotland took over England, the opposite feels the case.

And so we come to the affairs of the present. The 300th anniversary of The Union, felt with disdain in Scotlan, was just two days before general elections in Scotland. The Scottish Nationalist Party, campaigning on a platform of Socttish independence won majority in this election, and it is their intention to repeal the Act of Union of 1707. The extent to which they will be sucessful is not the basis of this post, but rather the impetus for such an action.