page_title: Union of the Crowns
section_title: Early unification
hierarchical_section_title: Union of the Crowns / Early unification
caption_attribution_description: Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England, sister of Henry VIII, wife of James IV of Scotland and mother of James V.
context_page_description: The Union of the Crowns was the accession of James VI of Scotland to the thrones of England and Ireland as James I, and the consequential unification for some purposes of the three realms under a single monarch on 24 March 1603. The Union of the Crowns followed the death of James's cousin, Elizabeth I of England, the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.
  The Union was a personal or dynastic union, with the Crown of England and the Crown of Scotland remaining both distinct and separate—despite James's best efforts to create a new ’imperial’ throne of ’Great Britain’. England and Scotland continued as autonomous states sharing a monarch with Ireland until the Acts of Union of 1707 during the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Anne.
context_section_description: In August 1503, James IV of Scotland married Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, and the spirit of the new age was celebrated by the poet William Dunbar in The Thrissil and the Rois. The marriage was the outcome of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace, concluded the previous year, which, in theory, ended centuries of Anglo-Scottish rivalry. The marriage brought Scotland's Stuarts into England's Tudor line of succession, despite the improbability of a Scottish prince acceding the English throne at the time. However, many on the English side were concerned by the dynastic implications of matrimony, including some Privy Councillors. In countering these fears Henry VII is reputed to have said:
  our realme wald receive na damage thair thorow, for in that caise Ingland wald not accress unto Scotland, bot Scotland wald acress unto Ingland, as to the most noble heid of the hole yle...evin as quhan Normandy came in the power of Inglis men our forbearis.
  The peace did not last in "perpetuity"; it was disturbed in 1513 when Henry VIII of England, who had succeeded his father four years before, declared war on France. In response France invoked the terms of the Auld Alliance, her ancient bond with Scotland. James duly invaded Northern England leading to the Battle of Flodden.
  In the decades that followed, England's relations with Scotland were turbulent. By the middle of Henry's reign, the problems of the royal succession, which seemed so unimportant in 1503, acquired ever bigger dimensions, when the question of Tudor fertility—or the lack thereof—entered directly into the political arena. Margaret's line was excluded from the English succession, though, during the reign of Elizabeth I concerns were once again raised. In the last decade of her reign it was clear to all that James VI of Scotland, great-grandson of James IV and Margaret, was the only generally acceptable heir.
caption: Margaret Tudor.
exif: {}