Acts of Union and Creation of Great Britain
- When
- 1707
- Where
- Parliament of Scotland
- Episodes
- 1
The Acts of Union 1707 ratified the 1706 Treaty, merging the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Ratification occurred in the Scottish Parliament on 16 January and the English Parliament in March, with the new state formally established on 1 May 1707.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. Following the 1706 Treaty of Union, separate acts were required to ratify the agreement. The English and Scottish parliaments passed these acts to implement the political joining of the two kingdoms, creating a single sovereign state under Queen Anne.
Parliamentary Ratification. The Parliament of Scotland ratified the Treaty on 16 January 1707 by a vote of 110 to 69. The Parliament of England subsequently ratified the act in March 1707. Although the English act was later in date, it bore the year 1706 due to the legal calendar.
Establishment of Great Britain. The Acts came into effect on 1 May 1707, uniting the separate Parliaments and kingdoms into a single entity called Great Britain. This created a unified Crown and parliament, with the new state's parliament based in the Palace of Westminster.
People involved
- Parliament of Scotland · Ratifying body
- Parliament of England · Ratifying body
- Queen Anne · Sovereign
Sources
- Acts of Union 1707 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-24
- Kingdom of Great Britain Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-05
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.