Note (Back) — Chapter II

39. The Union with Scotland, 1707.—Finally may be mentioned the important changes in the governmental structure which arose from the Act of Union with Scotland, in 1707, and the Act of Union with Ireland, in 1801. Except during a brief portion of the period of the Protectorate, the legal relation of England and Wales, on the one side, and the kingdom of Scotland, on the other, was from 1603 to 1707 that simply of a personal union through the crown. Scotland had her own parliament, her own established church, her own laws, her own courts, her own army, and her own system of finance. By the Act of 1707 a union was established of a far more substantial sort. The two countries were erected into a single kingdom, known henceforth as Great Britain. The Scottish parliament was abolished and representation was accorded the Scottish nobility and people in the British parliament at Westminster. The quota of commoners was fixed at forty-five (thirty to be chosen by the counties and fifteen by the boroughs) and that of peers (to be elected by the entire body of Scottish peers at the beginning of each parliament) at sixteen. All laws respecting trade, excises, and customs were required to be uniform throughout the two countries, but the local laws of Scotland upon other subjects were continued in operation, subject to revision by the common parliament. The Scottish judicial system remained unchanged;[44] likewise the status of the established Presbyterian Church.[45]