Union of The Crowns - Success of The Union

Success of The Union

In many ways the problems of the dynastic union between England and Scotland were little different from those engendered by similar experiments elsewhere in Europe: the case of Aragon and Castile might be compared, as does the temporary union of Sweden and Poland (see Polish-Swedish union). Unions of this kind can be made to work, but they take time to bed down. In the end the union of Scotland and England was to be successful but it was never a marriage of equals. James promised that he would return to his ancient kingdom every three years. In the end he came back only once — in 1617 — and even then his English councillors pleaded with him to remain in London. Scotland, up to the full parliamentary Union of 1707, may have retained its institutional independence, but it lost control of vital areas of policy, most notably foreign relations, which remained the prerogative of the crown. This meant, in practice, that policy matters were inevitably tied to English rather than Scottish interests. A case in point was the Dutch Wars of Charles II, which took Scotland to war with its strongest trading partner, though no Scottish interest was served and none threatened. The failure of Scotland's attempts to establish overseas trading colonies, firstly in Nova Scotia then later in the Isthmus of Panama, (under the ill-fated Darien scheme), were also in part due to the priority given to English interests over those of Scotland by the sovereign. James's imperial crown over time diminished in size and scope, so much so that in 1616 he was to admit openly in the Star Chamber that his intention 'was always to effect union by uniting Scotland to England, and not England to Scotland.' Years later Queen Anne, the first true British monarch, was to describe the Scots as 'a strange people' and told her first parliament that she knew her heart 'to be entirely English.' It was to be George III — a scion of the German House of Hanover — who recaptured something of the old spirit of King James of 1603 when he declared his pride 'in the name of Briton.'