The first Parliament of Great Britain was established in 1707, after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland under the Acts of Union. Although the monarch increasingly became a figurehead, Parliament was only elected by male property owners, which amounted to 3% of the population in 1780. The first known British person of African heritage to vote in a general election, Ignatius Sancho, voted in 1774 and 1780. During the Age of Liberty in Sweden (1718–1772), civil rights were expanded and power shifted from the monarch to parliament. The taxed peasantry was represented in parliament, although with little influence, but commoners without taxed property had no suffrage.