independence and also deepened its
distinctive identity, being ruled since
1371 by the House of Stuart.
In 1603, when Queen Elizabeth
died childless, James V I of Scotland
also became James I of England. By
now, both countries had embraced the
Protestant Reformation and on either
side of the border there was a feeling that
‘if you can’t beat them, join them’. By the
1700s, though, this union of the crowns
seemed insufficient to Queen Anne and
her ministers. The Scottish parliament
was reluctant to approve taxes and troops
for England’s war against Louis XIV; nor
would it endorse the succession of Sophia
of Hanover if A nne died childless, in
order to ensure that the A nglo-Scottish
kingdoms remained Protestant. So the
English applied pressure, and the Scots
agreed to a treaty of union, which came
into force in 1707.
Dirty deal?
To Scottish nationalists, the Act of
Union remains a dirty deal. Yet Scot-
land’s legal and religious institutions
remained untouched, and union also
brought real advantages for Scottish
commerce by creating a common
market. English capital could flow
across the border, Scottish traders were
guaranteed access to England’s lucrative
American colonies, and Glasgow
merchants quickly secured dominance
in the transatlantic tobacco trade.
Through this legislative union,
Scotland’s people and resources
were harnessed to England’s imperial
project. Colonial administration and
the army depended heavily on Scottish
manpower. Historian Robert Colls has
aptly declared that “England made the
Union, but Scotland made it work”.
Union with Ireland in 1801
was prompted by Britain’s war with
revolutionary France, which attempted
two invasions of Ireland to support
Irish rebels. Unlike the Scots, the
Irish struggled to hold their own in the
British empire. Scotland’s precocious
industrialisation allowed it to exploit
English capital and commerce within
the common market, whereas union
only accentuated the colonial status of
Ireland’s heavily agrarian society. For
many Irish people, emigration seemed
the only answer, and the Gaelic revival
fostered nationalist sentiment among
those who remained.
In 1912 the Liberal government,
dependent on Irish MPs for its Com-
mons majority, introduced a Home Rule
bill for Ireland. Activists in Scotland
proposed their own Home Rule bill,
which passed its second reading in the
Commons in 1913. In Wales, anti-
English passions were directed against
the established Anglican Church, whose
wealth buttressed the power of largely
English landlords.
Then, out of the blue, came the as-
sassination in Sarajevo in June 1914 that
triggered the First World War. The Lib-
eral government still forced Irish Home
Rule onto the statute book, togetherwith disestablishment of the Anglican
Church in Wales. But implementation
of both pieces of legislation was suspend-
ed for the duration of the war, while the
Scottish Home Rule bill failed to get a
third reading because of the pressure of
wartime business.
The First World War proved a
turning point for the UK. Four years
of Scottish and Welsh sacrifice for
the British empire had a lasting effect.
Although new nationalist parties were
founded in both countries during the
1920s, neither made much headway,
and the new sense of Britishness in
Scotland and Wales, sealed in blood,
was reinforced by another world war.
While the First World War forged
Britain anew, it split Ireland asunder.
Irish nationalists secured independ-
ence through a bitter guerrilla war
in 1919–21. But six counties in the
north-east of Ireland remained within
the UK, partitioned off by the British GETTY^ IMAGESScotland