The Acts of Union refer to two Acts of Parliament, one by the Parliament of England in 1706, the other by the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. They put into effect the Treaty of Union agreed on 22 July 1706, which merged the previously separate Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into a single Kingdom of Great Britain, with Queen Anne as its sovereign. The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707, creating the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster.
The United Kingdom has three distinctly different legal systems, each of which derives from a particular geographical area for a variety of historical reasons: English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and, since 2007, calls for a fourth type, that of purely Welsh law as a result of Welsh devolution, with further calls for a Welsh justice system.
The Act of Security 1704, also referred to as the Act for the Security of the Kingdom, was a response by the Parliament of Scotland to the Parliament of England's Act of Settlement 1701. Queen Anne's last surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester, had died in 1700, and both parliaments needed to find a Protestant successor. The English Parliament had settled on Electress Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of King James VI and I, without consulting the Scottish Parliament.
The Parliament of Scotland was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council of bishops and earls, with the first identifiable parliament being held in 1235 during the reign of Alexander II, when it already possessed a political and judicial role.
Sir George Lockhart of Lee, of Carnwath, South Lanarkshire, also known as Lockhart of Carnwath, was a Scottish writer and Jacobite politician who sat in the Parliament of Scotland from 1702 to 1707 and as a Tory in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1715. He was a member of the Commission on the Union before 1707 but acted as an informant to his Jacobite colleagues and later wrote an anonymous memoir of its dealings. He supported the Stuart cause in the Jacobite rising of 1715.
The Treaty of Union is the name usually now given to the treaty which led to the creation of the new state of Great Britain. The treaty united the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland to be "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". At the time it was more often referred to as the Articles of Union.
The first Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain was established in 1707 after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. It was in fact the 4th and last session of the 2nd Parliament of Queen Anne suitably renamed: no fresh elections were held in England or in Wales, and the existing members of the House of Commons of England sat as members of the new House of Commons of Great Britain. In Scotland, prior to the union coming into effect, the Scottish Parliament appointed sixteen peers and 45 Members of Parliaments to join their English counterparts at Westminster.
David Boyle, 1st Earl of Glasgow was a Scottish politician and peer. He was the last Treasurer-depute before the Union with England.
The Tender of Union was a declaration of the Parliament of England during the Interregnum following the War of the Three Kingdoms stating that Scotland would cease to have an independent parliament and would join England in its emerging Commonwealth republic.
Events from the year 1706 in the Kingdom of Scotland.
Events from the year 1705 in the Kingdom of Scotland.
William Atwood was an English lawyer, known also as a political and historical writer.
William Fraser, 12th Lord Saltoun, was a Scottish peer and the 11th Laird of Philorth.
The Act anent Peace and War was an act of the Parliament of Scotland passed in 1703.
The Squadrone Volante or New Party was a political grouping in Scotland which emerged around 1700 as an offshoot of the opposition Country Party. Led by John Ker, 5th Earl of Roxburghe and John Hay, 2nd Marquess of Tweeddale, the party was influential in passing the Act of Union with England in 1707.
The Restoration was the return of the monarchy to Scotland in 1660 after the period of the Commonwealth, and the subsequent three decades of Scottish history until the Revolution and Convention of Estates of 1689. It was part of a wider Restoration in the British Isles that included the return of the Stuart dynasty to the thrones of England and Ireland in the person of Charles II.
Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is a hybrid or mixed legal system containing civil law and common law elements, that traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. Together with English law and Northern Irish law, it is one of the three legal systems of the United Kingdom. Scots law recognises four sources of law: legislation, legal precedent, specific academic writings, and custom. Legislation affecting Scotland and Scots law is passed by the Scottish Parliament on all areas of devolved responsibility, and the United Kingdom Parliament on reserved matters. Some legislation passed by the pre-1707 Parliament of Scotland is still also valid.
Prior to the Reformation of 1560, Christmas in Scotland, then called "Yule" or in Gaelic-speaking areas "Nollaig", was celebrated in a similar fashion to the rest of Catholic Europe. Calderwood recorded that in 1545, a few months before his murder, Cardinal Beaton had "passed over the Christmasse dayes with games and feasting". However, the Reformation transformed attitudes to traditional Christian feasting days, including Christmas, and led in practice to the abolition of festival days and other church holidays, the Kirk and the state being closely linked in Scotland during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. A 1640 Act of the Parliament of Scotland abolished the "Yule vacation and all observation thereof in time coming".
An Act of Adjournal is secondary legislation made by the High Court of Justiciary, the supreme criminal court of Scotland, to regulate the proceedings of Scottish courts hearing criminal matters. Now primarily derived from the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, the original power to create Acts of Adjournal is derived from an Act of the Parliament of Scotland in 1672. Before promulgation, Acts of Adjournal are reviewed and may be commented upon by the Criminal Courts Rules Council.
Sir James Murray, Lord Philiphaugh PC was a Scottish judge and politician who twice served as Lord Clerk Register from November 1702 to June 1704 and from April 1705 to July 1708, when he died in office. Serving as a political advisor to the prominent statesman James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, Murray assisted him in passing the 1707 Union with England Act through a divided Parliament of Scotland.
