The
Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the
United Kingdom of Great Britain,
[1][2] was a
sovereign state in
northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1801. It was created by the
merger of the
Kingdom of Scotland and the
Kingdom of England, under the
Acts of Union 1707, to create a single kingdom encompassing the whole of the island of
Great Britain and its minor outlying islands, excluding Ireland—which remained a separate jurisdiction under the British crown. A single parliament and government, based in
Westminster, controlled the new kingdom. The kingdoms had
shared the same monarch since
James VI, King of Scots became
King of England in 1603 following the death of
Queen Elizabeth I.
The Kingdom of Great Britain was superseded by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, when the Kingdom of Ireland was merged with it with the enactment of the Act of Union (1800) following the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
The kingdoms of England and Scotland were separate states from the 9th century but came into personal union in 1603 when James VI of Scotland succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I as James I of England. Though remaining separate states, this Union of the Crowns meant that the whole of the island of Great Britain was ruled by a single monarch with two titles (King of England and King of Scots), and two parliaments, except during the Interregnum and during the joint reign of William and Mary, who jointly reigned over both Kingdoms. This changed with the Acts of Union 1707, from when the monarch of Great Britain ruled by the power of a single unified Crown of Great Britain and of a single unified parliament.[3] The succession to the throne of England, Ireland and Scotland was determined by the English Act of Settlement, rather than the Scottish equivalent, the Act of Security as this was part of the terms agreed in the 1706 Treaty of Union[4] and put into effect with the two Acts of Union the following year. The adoption of the Act of Settlement required that the heir to the English throne be a Protestant descendant of Sophia of Hanover, effecting the future Hanoverian succession.
Legislative power was vested in the Parliament of Great Britain, which replaced the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland.[5] As with the modern Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Parliament of Great Britain included three elements the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Crown-in-Parliament. England and Scotland were given seats in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons of the new parliament. Although Scotland's representation in both houses was smaller than its population indicated it should have been, representation in parliament was at that time based not on population but on taxation, and Scotland was given a greater number of seats than its share of taxation warranted. Under the terms of the union, Scotland sent 16 representative peers to the Lords and elected 45 members to the Commons, with the rest being sent from England and Wales.[6]
