Kingdom of Great Britain - 必应 Sign in Kingdom of Great Britain The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain /ɡreɪt ˈbrɪ.tən/, was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800. The state came into being following the Treaty of Union in 1706, ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single, united kingdom, encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands. It did not include Ireland, which remained a separate realm. The unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government, ... (展开) based at Westminster. The former kingdoms had been in personal union since James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland in 1603 following the death of Queen Elizabeth I, bringing about a "Union of the Crowns". Also, after the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the kingdom was in personal union with the Electorate of Hanover.

The early years of the unified kingdom were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. Later, in 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the dominance of the British Empire, which was to be the foremost global power for over a century and later grew to become the largest empire in history. On 1 January 1801, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom, and the state was renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" – its formal name at present. 关于Kingdom of Great Britain，网友们最关心的问题 1 3 2007 4 2007 the united kingdom of great britain是什么意思 答 the united kingdom of great britain大不列颠及北爱尔兰联合王国双语对照例句:1.Is the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland doomed to lose the beautifulmountainous bit...

UK，Britain，the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,Great Britain他们之间有区别吗？ 答 UK=United Kingdom , 英国，组成其国土的主要岛屿是大不列颠岛、北爱尔兰岛。英国的水域有将近25万平方公里，陆地面积则有超过24万平方公里，分别为英格兰地区为13万平方公里，苏格兰地区为7.88万平方公里，威尔士2万平方公里，北爱尔兰1.36万平方公里。Britain 不列颠(英格兰, 威尔士和苏格兰的总称) 不列颠：在前罗马、罗马以及艾弗烈大帝统治... 同是“英国”的意思，在英语应用上有何不同？ 答 "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"是“大不列颠和北爱尔兰联合王国” 是现在我们所谓“英国”的全称，是较为正式说法。例如我们的“中华人民共和国”"the U.K." 是"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"的简...

来自 百度文库 2010-10-17 3 来自 百度知道 2010-07-30 4 Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died leaving no legitimate, surviving children. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments.

Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. 本结果选自666项相关网络资源 During its first century of operation the focus of the East India Company had been trade, not the building of an empire in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French count...

Kingdom of Great Britain Etymology Further information: Britain (place name) The name Britain descends from the Latin name for the island of Great Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons via the Old French Bretaigne (whence also Modern French Bretagne) and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily the daughter of Edward IV of England, and James the son of James III of Scotland. The Treaty of Union and the subsequent Acts of Union state that England and Scotland were to be "United into one Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". The websites of the UK parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the BBC, and others, including the Historical Association, refer to the state created on 1 May 1707 as the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Additionally, the term United Kingdom is also used in the Treaty of Union and was found in informal use during the 18th century to describe the state.

However, the state created by the union of England and Scotland in 1707 is named in the treaty as Great Britain; and is usually referred to by that name or as the Kingdom of Great Britain. Kingdom of Great Britain Political structure Main article: Parliament of Great Britain The kingdoms of England and Scotland, both in existence from the 9th century, were separate states until 1707. However, they had come into a personal union in 1603, when James VI of Scotland succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I as King of England under the name of James I. This Union of the Crowns under the House of Stuart meant that the whole of the island of Great Britain was now ruled by a single monarch, who by virtue of holding the English crown also ruled over the Kingdom of Ireland. Each of the three kingdoms maintained its own parliament and laws (although there was a brief attempted union during the Interregnum in the mid-17th century). This disposition changed dramatically when the Acts of Union 1707 came into force, with a single unified Crown of Great Britain and a single unified parliament. Ireland remained formally separate, with its own parliament, until the Acts of Union 1800.

The Treaty of Union provided that succession to the British throne (and that of Ireland) would be in accordance with the English Act of Settlement of 1701; rather than Scotland's Act of Security of 1704, which ceased to have effect. The Act of Settlement required that the heir to the English throne be a descendant of the Electress Sophia of Hanover who was not a "Papist"; this brought about the Hanoverian succession only a few years after the Union. Legislative power was vested in the Parliament of Great Britain, which replaced both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. In practice it was a continuation of the English parliament, sitting at the same location in Westminster, expanded to include representation from Scotland. As with the former Parliament of England and the modern Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Parliament of Great Britain was formally constituted of three elements: the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Crown. The right of the English peerage to sit in the House of Lords remained unchanged, while the disproportionately large Scottish peerage was permitted to send only 16 representative peers, elected from amongst their number for the life of each parliament.

Similarly, the members of the former English House of Commons continued as members of the British House of Commons, but as a reflection of the relative tax bases of the two countries the number of Scottish representatives was reduced to 45. Newly created peers in the Peerage of Great Britain were given the automatic right to sit in the Lords. Despite the end of a separate parliament for Scotland, it retained its own laws and system of courts. Kingdom of Great Britain Relationship with Ireland As a result of Poynings' Law of 1495, the Parliament of Ireland was subordinate to the Parliament of England, and after 1707 to the Parliament of Great Britain. The British parliament's Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719 noted that the Irish House of Lords had recently "assumed to themselves a Power and Jurisdiction to examine, correct and amend" judgements of the Irish courts and declared that as the Kingdom of Ireland was subordinate to and dependent upon the British crown, the King, through the Parliament of Great Britain, had "full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient validity to bind the Kingdom and people of Ireland".

The Act was repealed by the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782. The same year, the Irish constitution of 1782 produced a period of legislative freedom. However, the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which sought to end the subordination and dependency upon the British crown and establish a republic, was one of the factors that led to the union between the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Integration The deeper political integration of her kingdoms was a key policy of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch of England and Scotland and the first monarch of Great Britain. A Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 following negotiations between representatives of the parliaments of England and Scotland, and each parliament then passed separate Acts of Union to ratify it. The Acts came into effect on 1 May 1707, uniting the separate Parliaments and crowns of England and Scotland and forming a single Kingdom of Great Britain.

Anne became the first occupant of the unified British throne, and in line with Article 22 of the Treaty of Union, Scotland sent 45 Members to join all of the existing members of the Parliament of England in the new House of Commons of Great Britain. Wars against France and Spain The death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip of Anjou, a grandson of the King of France, had raised British fears of the unification of France, Spain and their colonies. In 1701, England, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession. The conflict lasted until 1714, until France and Spain finally lost. At the concluding Treaty of Utrecht, Philip renounced his and his descendants' right to the French throne. Spain lost its empire in Europe, and although it kept its empire in the Americas and the Philippines, it was irreversibly weakened as a great power.

The new British Empire, based upon what until 1707 had been the English overseas possessions, was enlarged: from France, Great Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia, and from Spain Gibraltar and Minorca. Gibraltar, which is still a British overseas territory, became a major naval base and allowed Great Britain to control the strait connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The Seven Years' War, which began in 1756, was the first war waged on a global scale and saw British involvement in Europe, India, North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and coastal Africa. The signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had important consequences for Great Britain and its empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power was effectively ended with the ceding of New France to the British, leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control, and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. In India, the third Carnatic War had left France still in control of its enclaves, but with military restrictions and an obligation to support the British client states, effectively leaving the future of India to Great Britain.

The British victory over France in the Seven Years' War therefore left Great Britain as the world's dominant colonial power. Kingdom of Great Britain Peerage of Great Britain Main article: Peerage of Great Britain As a result of the Union of 1707, no new peerages were created in the Peerage of England or the Peerage of Scotland. English peerages continued to carry the right to a seat in the House of Lords, while the Scottish peers elected representative peers from among their own number to sit in the Lords. Peerages continued to be created by the Crown, either in the new Peerage of Great Britain, which was that of the new kingdom and meant a seat in its House of Lords, or in the Peerage of Ireland, giving the holder a seat in the Irish House of Lords. Kingdom of Great Britain References ^ a b "After the political union of England and Scotland in 1707, the nation's official name became 'Great Britain'", The American Pageant, Volume 1, Cengage Learning (2012) ^ a b "From 1707 until 1801 Great Britain was the official designation of the kingdoms of England and Scotland".

The Standard Reference Work: For the Home, School and Library, Volume 3, Harold Melvin Stanford (1921) ^ a b "In 1707, on the union with Scotland, 'Great Britain' became the official name of the British Kingdom, and so continued until the union with Ireland in 1801". United States Congressional serial set, Issue 10; Issue 3265 (1895) ^ The Acts of Union passed by both parliaments in 1800, and which created the United Kingdom, came into effect on 1 January 1801. ^ a b Article 1 in each of:"The Treaty (act) of the Union of Parliament 1706". Scots History Online. Retrieved 18 July 2011. /7/contents "Union with England Act 1707" Check |url= value (help). The national Archives. Retrieved 18 July 2011. "Union with Scotland Act 1706".

Retrieved 18 July 2011.: That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon 1 May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. ^ Acts of Union 1707 parliament.uk, accessed 31 December 2010 ^ Making the Act of Union 1707 scottish.parliament.uk, accessed 31 December 2010 Archived 6 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine ^ England – Profile BBC, 10 February 2011 ^ Scottish referendum: 50 fascinating facts you should know about Scotland (see fact 27) 11 January 2012 ^ Uniting the kingdom?

nationalarchives.gov.uk, accessed 31 December 2010 ^ The Union of the Parliaments 1707 Learning and Teaching Scotland, accessed 2 September 2010 ^ The Creation of the United Kingdom of Great britain in 1707 Historical Association, accessed 30 January 2011 ^ Union with England Act 1707, Section IV accesses 31 October 2015 ^ Bamber Gascoigne. "History of Great Britain (from 1707)". History World. Retrieved 18 July 2011. ^ William E. Burns, A Brief History of Great Britain, p. xxi ^ Prakke, L.; Kortmann, C. A. J. M.; van den Brandhof, J. C. E. (2004). Constitutional law of 15 EU member states. p.866. ISBN978-90-13-01255-2. Retrieved 18 July 2011. ^ Home Office (2007). Life in the United Kingdom: a journey to citizenship.

ISBN978-0-11-341317-1. Retrieved 18 July 2011. ^ Dickinson (ed.), H.T. (2002). A companion to eighteenth-century Britain. p.381. ISBN978-0-631-21837-1. Retrieved 18 July 2011. ^ V. E. Hartley Booth & Peter Sells, British extradition law and procedure: including extradition between the United Kingdom and foreign states, the Commonwealth and dependent countries and the Republic of Ireland (Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1980; ISBN 978-90-286-0079-9), p. 5 ^ Act of Union 1707, Article 1. ^ Treaty of Union 1706, Article 2. ^ Act of Union 1707, Article 3. ^ Act of Union 1707, Article 22. ^ W. C. Costin & J.

Steven Watson, eds., The Law & Working of the Constitution: Documents 1660–1914, vol. I for 1660–1783 (A. & C. Black, 1952), pp. 128–129 ^ Costin Watson (1952), p. 147 ^ Anthony, Pagden (2003). Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from Greece to the Present. Modern Library. p.90. ^ The Treaty or Act of the Union scotshistoryonline.co.uk, accessed 2 November 2008 ^ Julian Hoppit, A Land of Liberty?: England 1689–1727 (2000) ch 4, 8 ^ Fred Anderson, The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War (2006) ^ Max Savelle, Seeds of Liberty: The Genesis of the American Mind (2005) pp. 204–211 ^ William R.

Nester, The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607–1755 (Praeger, 2000) p, 54. ^ Jeremy Black, War for America: The Fight for Independence, 1775–1783 (2001) ^ Phillip Buckner, Canada and the British Empire (2010), ch 2 ^ Maya Jasanoff, Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (2012) ^ Robin Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History (2000) ^ Desmond Morton, A short history of Canada (2001) ^ Anthony, Pagden (1998). The Origins of Empire, The Oxford History of the British Empire. Oxford University Press. p.92. ^ James, Lawrence (2001). The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. Abacus. p.119. ^ Deryck Schreuder and Stuart Ward, eds., Australia's Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2010), ch 1 ^ Harold B.

Carter, "Banks, Cook and the Eighteenth Century Natural History Tradition", in Tony Delamotte and Carl Bridge (eds.), Interpreting Australia: British Perceptions of Australia since 1788, London, Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, 1988, pp.4–23. ^ Alan Atkinson, "The first plans for governing New South Wales, 1786–87", Australian Historical Studies, vol.24, no.94, April 1990, pp. 22–40, p.31. ^ James (2001), p. 152 ^ David Andress, The Savage Storm: Britain on the Brink in the Age of Napoleon (2012) ^ "British History – The 1798 Irish Rebellion". BBC. 5 November 2009. Retrieved 23 April 2010.

^ Daniel Gahan, Rebellion!: Ireland in 1798 (1998) ^ John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle (1996), vol 3 cover 1797 to his death in 1806. ^ Chris Cook & John Stevenson, British Historical Facts 1760–1830 (The Macmillan Press, 1980) Black, Jeremy. Britain as a Military Power, 1688–1815 (2002) excerpt and text search Brumwell, Stephen, and W.A. Speck. Cassell's Companion to Eighteenth Century Britain (2002), an encyclopaedia Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (2nd ed. 2009) excerpt and text search Daunton, Martin. Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain 1700–1850 (1995) excerpt and text search Hilton, Boyd.

A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?: England 1783–1846 (New Oxford History of England) (2008) excerpt and text search Hoppit, Julian. A Land of Liberty?: England 1689–1727 (New Oxford History of England) (2000) James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (2001) Langford, Paul. A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (New Oxford History of England) (1994) excerpt and text search O'Gorman, Frank. The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History 1688–1832 (1997) 415pp Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century (2nd ed. 1990) excerpt and text search Rule, John. Albion's People: English Society 1714–1815 (1992) Speck, W.A.

Literature and Society in Eighteenth-Century England: Ideology, Politics and Culture, 1680–1820 (1998) Watson, J. Steven. The Reign of George III, 1760–1815 (Oxford History of England) (1960) Williams, Basil. The Whig Supremacy 1714–1760 (1939) online edition Kingdom of Great Britain | American Revoluntionary War Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia American Revoluntionary War Wiki This article is about the historical kingdom, before the 1800 Act of Union with Ireland. For the modern state, see United Kingdom . Kingdom of Great Britain1 Territory of the Kingdom of Great Britain Capital London Language(s) English (throughout) 2 The Royal motto used in Scotland was In My Defens God Me Defend . 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. 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 . Contents Edit 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 in 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 thrones 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] Name Edit Occasionally, the Kingdom of Great Britain is given the alternative name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which is often shortened to United Kingdom. There is substantial debate over whether the latter name is acceptable.

[7] The Treaty of Union refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain in several places: it is argued that the word "United" is only an adjective , and not part of the style, citing the subsequent Acts of Union themselves, which explicitly state the name of the new state: that England and Scotland were "united into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". [8] The name "United Kingdom" is sometimes preferred for purposes of continuity, particularly in the military and colonial spheres. At the time of the Act of Union 1800, which unambiguously styled the new state as the "United Kingdom", the British were embroiled in the Great French War and the British Empire possessed many colonies in the Americas , India, and Australia. Some who would otherwise prefer the term "Kingdom of Great Britain" thus use "United Kingdom" to avoid using two different names for a single military and colonial power, which may confuse the discussion.

Britain in the 18th century Edit Template:See England and the Netherlands entered the Nine Years' War as allies, but the conflict - waged in Europe and overseas between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance - left the English a stronger colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of their military budget on the costly land war in Europe. [9] The 18th century would see England (after 1707, Britain) rise to be the world's dominant colonial power, and France becoming its main rival on the imperial stage. [10] The death of Charles II of Spain on Nov. 1, 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philippe of Anjou , a grandson of the King of France, raised the prospect of the unification of France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for Britain and the other powers of Europe. In 1701, Britain, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession . The conflict, which France and Spain were to lose, lasted until 1714.

At the concluding peace Treaty of Utrecht , Philip renounced his and his descendents' right to the French throne. Spain lost its empire in Europe, and though it kept its empire in the Americas and the Philippines, it was irreversibly weakened as a power. The British Empire was territorially enlarged: from France, Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia , and from Spain, Gibraltar and Minorca . Gibraltar , which is still a British overseas territory to this day, became a critical naval base and allowed Britain to control the Atlantic entry and exit point to the Mediterranean . Deeper political integration of Britain had been a key policy of Queen Anne (reigned 1702–14), the last Stuart monarch of England and Scotland and the only Stuart monarch of the Kingdom of Great Britain). Under the aegis of the Queen and her advisors a Treaty of Union was drawn up, and negotiations between England and Scotland began in earnest in 1706. The Acts of Union received royal assent in 1707, uniting the separate Parliaments and crowns of England and Scotland and forming the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Anne became formally the first occupant of the unified British throne and in line with Article 22 of the Treaty of Union , Scotland sent 45 MPs to the new parliament of Great Britain . [11] File:Clive.jpg The Seven Years' War , which began in 1754, was the first war waged on a global scale, fought in Europe, India, North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and coastal Africa. The signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763) had important consequences for Britain and its empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power there was effectively ended with the ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control) and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. In India, the Carnatic War had left France still in control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and an obligation to support British client states, effectively leaving the future of India to Britain. The British victory over France in the Seven Years War therefore left Britain as the world's dominant colonial power.

[12] During the 1760s and 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the British Parliament's ability to tax American colonists without their consent. [13] Disagreement turned to violence and in 1775 the American Revolutionary War began. The following year, the colonists declared the independence of the United States and with economical and naval assistance from France, would go on to win the war in 1783. The loss of the United States , at the time Britain's most populous colony, is seen by historians as the event defining the transition between the "first" and "second" empires, [14] in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa. Adam Smith 's Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal.

The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1783 [15] confirmed Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success. During its first century of operation, the focus of the British East India Company had been trade, not the building of an empire in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the British East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the La Compagnie française des Indes orientales , during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s. The Battle of Plassey , which saw the British, led by Robert Clive , defeat the French and their Indian allies, left the Company in control of Bengal and a major military and political power in India. In the following decades it gradually increased the size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force of the Indian Army , 80% of which was composed of native Indian sepoys . In 1770, James Cook had discovered the eastern coast of Australia whilst on a scientific voyage to the South Pacific.

In 1778, Joseph Banks , Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement, and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788. At the threshold to the 19th century, Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon , in a struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented a contest of ideologies between the two nations. [16] It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was threatened: Napoleon threatened invasion of Britain itself, and with it, a fate similar to the countries of continental Europe that his armies had overrun. The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones that Britain invested large amounts of capital and resources to win. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy , which won a decisive victory over the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805. Monarchs Kingdom of Great Britain - iSnare Free Encyclopedia Kingdom of Great Britain This article is about the state that existed from 1707 to 1801. For the modern state, see United Kingdom .

Great Britain Location of Great Britain in 1801 (green) in Europe (green & grey) Languages English (official), Scots , Norn , Welsh , Cornish , Scottish Gaelic , Angloromani Demonym British , Briton Government Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy Monarch • 1707–1714 [a] Anne • 1714–1727 George I • 1727–1760 George II • 1760–1801 [b] George III Prime Minister • 1721–1742 Robert Walpole • 1742–1743 Spencer Compton • 1757–1762 Duke of Newcastle • 1766–1768 William Pitt the Elder • 1770–1782 Lord North • 1783–1801 William Pitt the Younger Legislature Parliament • Upper house House of Lords • Lower house House of Commons History • Treaty of Union 22 July 1706 • Acts of Union 1 May 1707 • Union with Ireland 1 January 1801

 Area • Total 230,977 km² (89,181 sq mi) Population • 1707 est.

7,000,000 Density 30.3 /km² (78.5 /sq mi) • 1800 est. 10,500,000 Density 45.5 /km² (117.7 /sq mi) Currency Pound sterling Preceded by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Today part of United Kingdom a. ^ Monarch of England and Scotland from 1702 to 1707. b. ^ Continued as monarch of the United Kingdom until 1820. e The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain /ɡreɪt ˈbrɪ.tən/ , [1] [2] [3] was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800. The state came into being following the Treaty of Union in 1706, ratified by the Acts of Union 1707 , which united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands. It did not include Ireland , which remained a separate realm.

The unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government that was based in Westminster . The former kingdoms had been in personal union since James VI , King of Scots , became King of England and King of Ireland in 1603 following the death of Queen Elizabeth I , bringing about a " Union of the Crowns ". Also after the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the kingdom was in a personal union with the Electorate of Hanover . The early years of the unified kingdom were marked by Jacobite risings which ended in defeat for the Stuart cause at the Culloden in 1746. Later on in 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the dominance of the British Empire , which was to become the foremost global power for over a century and later grew to become the largest empire in history. On 1 January 1801, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland .

[4] In 1922, five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom and the state was renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" – a title it has retained to date. Contents Further information: Britain (place name) The name Britain descends from the Latin name for the island of Great Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons via the Old French Bretaigne (whence also Modern French Bretagne) and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Edward IV of England 's daughter Cecily and James III of Scotland 's son James . The Treaty of Union and the subsequent Acts of Union state that England and Scotland were to be "United into one Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". [5] However, both the Acts and the Treaty also refer numerous times to the "United Kingdom" and the longer form, the "United Kingdom of Great Britain". Other publications refer to the country as the "United Kingdom" after 1707 as well.

[6] [7] The websites of the UK parliament , the Scottish Parliament , the BBC , and others, including the Historical Association , refer to the state created on 1 May 1707 as the United Kingdom of Great Britain. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Additionally, the term United Kingdom was found in informal use during the 18th century to describe the state. [14] [15] Extent The new state created in 1707 included the island of Great Britain, together with the many smaller islands that were part of the kingdoms of England and Scotland. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man were never part of the kingdom of Great Britain, although by the Isle of Man Purchase Act 1765 the British Crown acquired suzerainty over the island from Charlotte Murray, Duchess of Atholl . [16] Political structure Main article: Parliament of Great Britain The kingdoms of England and Scotland, both in existence from the 9th century, were separate states until 1707.

However, they had come into a personal union in 1603, when James VI of Scotland succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I as King of England under the name of James I . This Union of the Crowns under the House of Stuart meant that the whole of the island of Great Britain was now ruled by a single monarch, who by virtue of holding the English crown also ruled over the Kingdom of Ireland . Each of the three kingdoms maintained its own parliament and laws (although there was a brief attempted union during the Interregnum in the mid-17th century). This disposition changed dramatically when the Acts of Union 1707 came into force, with a single unified Crown of Great Britain and a single unified parliament. [17] Ireland remained formally separate, with its own parliament, until the Acts of Union 1800 . The Treaty of Union provided that succession to the British throne (and that of Ireland) would be in accordance with the English Act of Settlement of 1701; rather than Scotland's Act of Security of 1704, which ceased to have effect.

[18] The Act of Settlement required that the heir to the English throne be a descendant of the Electress Sophia of Hanover who was not a " Papist "; this brought about the Hanoverian succession only a few years after the Union. Legislative power was vested in the Parliament of Great Britain , which replaced both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland . [19] In practice it was a continuation of the English parliament, sitting at the same location in Westminster, expanded to include representation from Scotland. As with the former Parliament of England and the modern Parliament of the United Kingdom , the Parliament of Great Britain was formally constituted of three elements: the House of Commons , the House of Lords , and the Crown . The right of the English peerage to sit in the House of Lords remained unchanged, while the disproportionately large Scottish peerage was permitted to send only 16 representative peers , elected from amongst their number for the life of each parliament. Similarly, the members of the former English House of Commons continued as members of the British House of Commons, but as a reflection of the relative tax bases of the two countries the number of Scottish representatives was reduced to 45.

[20] Newly created peers in the Peerage of Great Britain were given the automatic right to sit in the Lords. Despite the end of a separate parliament for Scotland, it retained its own laws and system of courts. Relationship with Ireland As a result of Poynings' Law of 1495, the Parliament of Ireland was subordinate to the Parliament of England , and after 1707 to the Parliament of Great Britain. The British parliament's Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719 noted that the Irish House of Lords had recently "assumed to themselves a Power and Jurisdiction to examine, correct and amend" judgements of the Irish courts and declared that as the Kingdom of Ireland was subordinate to and dependent upon the British crown, the King , through the Parliament of Great Britain, had "full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient validity to bind the Kingdom and people of Ireland". [21] The Act was repealed by the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782 . [22] The same year, the Irish constitution of 1782 produced a period of legislative freedom.

However, the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , which sought to end the subordination and dependency upon the British crown and establish a republic, was one of the factors that led to the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Great Britain in the 18th century The 18th century saw England, and after 1707 Great Britain, rise to become the world's dominant colonial power , with France its main rival on the imperial stage. [23] The pre-1707 English overseas possessions became the nucleus of the British Empire . Integration The deeper political integration of her kingdoms was a key policy of Queen Anne , the last Stuart monarch of England and Scotland and the first monarch of Great Britain. A Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 following negotiations between representatives of the parliaments of England and Scotland, and each parliament then passed separate Acts of Union to ratify it. The Acts came into effect on 1 May 1707, uniting the separate Parliaments and crowns of England and Scotland and forming a single Kingdom of Great Britain.

Anne became the first occupant of the unified British throne, and in line with Article 22 of the Treaty of Union , Scotland sent 45 Members to join all of the existing members of the Parliament of England in the new House of Commons of Great Britain . [24] Lord Clive meeting Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey , by Francis Hayman (c. 1762) Wars against France and Spain The death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip of Anjou , a grandson of the King of France, had raised British fears of the unification of France, Spain and their colonies. In 1701, England, Portugal , and the Dutch Republic sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession . The conflict lasted until 1714, until France and Spain finally lost. At the concluding Treaty of Utrecht , Philip renounced his and his descendants' right to the French throne. Spain lost its empire in Europe, and although it kept its empire in the Americas and the Philippines, it was irreversibly weakened as a great power.

The new British Empire, based upon what until 1707 had been the English overseas possessions , was enlarged: from France, Great Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia , and from Spain Gibraltar and Minorca . Gibraltar, which is still a British overseas territory , became a major naval base and allowed Great Britain to control the strait connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. [25] The Seven Years' War , which began in 1756, was the first war waged on a global scale and saw British involvement in Europe, India , North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and coastal Africa. The signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had important consequences for Great Britain and its empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power was effectively ended with the ceding of New France to the British, leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control, and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. In India, the third Carnatic War had left France still in control of its enclaves , but with military restrictions and an obligation to support the British client states, effectively leaving the future of India to Great Britain.

The British victory over France in the Seven Years' War therefore left Great Britain as the world's dominant colonial power. [26] Mercantilism Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Great Britain on its overseas possessions. [27] Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchants—and kept others out—by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries to maximise exports from and minimise imports to the realm. The government had to fight smuggling—which became a favourite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in London and other British ports. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy, which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. Thus the Royal Navy captured New Amsterdam (later New York) in 1664.

The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country. [28] American Revolution During the 1760s and 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment toward the British Parliament's ability to tax American colonists without their consent. Disagreement turned into a violent insurrection. In 1775, the American Revolutionary War began, as the Americans trapped the British army in Boston and suppressed the Loyalists who supported the Crown. In 1776 the Americans declared the independence of the United States of America . Under the military leadership of General George Washington , and, with economic and military assistance from France, the Dutch Republic and Spain, the United States held off successive British invasions. The Americans captured two main British armies in 1777 and 1781. After that King George III lost control of Parliament and was unable to continue the war. It ended with the Treaty of Paris by which Great Britain relinquished the Thirteen Colonies and recognised the United States . The war was expensive but the British financed it successfully.

[29] Upper and Lower Canada Main article: History of Canada After a series of "French and Indian wars," the British took slices of France's North American colonies in New France , finally acquiring all of them (except the small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon ) in 1763. The former French colony of Canada was renamed Quebec . Great Britain's policy was to respect Quebec's religious heritage—even though it was Roman Catholic—as well as its legal, economic, and social systems. By the Quebec Act of 1774, the Province of Quebec was enlarged to include the western holdings of the American colonies. In the American Revolutionary War , starting in 1775, the British made Halifax, Nova Scotia , their major base for naval action. They repulsed an American revolutionary invasion in 1776, but in 1777 a British invasion army was captured in New York, encouraging France to enter the war. [30] After the American victory, between 40,000 and 60,000 defeated Loyalists migrated, some bringing their slaves. [31] Most families were given free land to compensate their losses.

Several thousand free blacks also arrived; most of them later went to Sierra Leone in Africa. [32] The 14,000 Loyalists who went to the Saint John and Saint Croix river valleys, then part of Nova Scotia, were not welcome by the locals. Therefore, in 1784 the British split off New Brunswick as a separate colony. The Constitutional Act of 1791 created the provinces of Upper Canada (mainly English-speaking) and Lower Canada (mainly French-speaking) to defuse tensions between the French and English-speaking communities, and implemented governmental systems similar to those employed in Great Britain, with the intention of asserting imperial authority and not allowing the sort of popular control of government that was perceived to have led to the American Revolution. [33] Second British Empire The loss of the Thirteen Colonies , Great Britain's most populous overseas possessions, which became the United States, marked the transition between the "first" and "second" empires, in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa.

[34] Adam Smith 's Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal. The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Great Britain after 1781 [35] confirmed Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success. India During its first century of operation the focus of the East India Company had been trade, not the building of an empire in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the French East India Company (Compagnie française des Indes orientales) during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s. The Battle of Plassey and Battle of Buxar , which saw the British, led by Robert Clive , defeat the Indian powers, left the company in control of Bengal and a major military and political power in India.

In the following decades it gradually increased the extent of the territories under its control, ruling either directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force by its Presidency armies , much of which were composed of native Indian sepoys . Australia and New Zealand Main articles: History of Australia (1788–1850) , History of Australia , and History of New Zealand In 1770, British explorer James Cook had discovered the eastern coast of Australia whilst on a scientific voyage to the South Pacific. In 1778, Joseph Banks , Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement. Australia marks the beginning of the Second British Empire. It was planned by the government in London and designed as a replacement for the lost American colonies. [36] The American Loyalist James Matra in 1783 write "A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales" proposing the establishment of a colony composed of American Loyalists, Chinese and South Sea Islanders (but not convicts).

[37] Matra reasoned that the land country was suitable for plantations of sugar, cotton and tobacco; New Zealand timber and hemp or flax could prove valuable commodities; it could form a base for Pacific trade; and it could be a suitable compensation for displaced American Loyalists. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Lord Sydney , Matra amended his proposal to include convicts as settlers, considering that this would benefit both "Economy to the Publick, & Humanity to the Individual". The government adopted the basics of Matra's plan in 1784, and funded the settlement of convicts. [38] In 1787 the First Fleet set sail, carrying the first shipment of convicts to the colony. It arrived in January 1788. Battling the French Revolution and Napoleon With the regicide of King Louis XVI in 1793, the French Revolution represented a contest of ideologies between the two nations.

[39] It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was threatened: Napoleon, who came to power in 1799, threatened invasion of Great Britain itself, and with it, a fate similar to the countries of continental Europe that his armies had overrun. The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones in which the British invested large amounts of capital and resources. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy . [40] The French Revolution revived religious and political grievances in Ireland . In 1798, Irish nationalists launched the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , believing that the French would help them to overthrow the British. [41] [42] William Pitt the Younger , the British prime minister, firmly believed that the only solution to the problem was a union of Great Britain and Ireland. Following the defeat of the rebellion, which had had some assistance from France, he advanced this policy. The union was established by the Act of Union 1800 ; compensation and patronage ensured the support of the Irish Parliament . Great Britain and Ireland were formally united on 1 January 1801.

[43] Monarchs George III (1760–1801) (continued as King of the United Kingdom until his death in 1820) Parliament of Great Britain Pitt addressing the Commons in 1793 The Parliament of Great Britain consisted of the House of Lords , an unelected upper house of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal , and the House of Commons , the lower chamber, which was elected periodically. In England and Wales parliamentary constituencies remained unchanged throughout the existence of the Parliament. [44] During the 18th century, the British Constitution developed significantly. Peerage of Great Britain Main article: Peerage of Great Britain As a result of the Union of 1707, no new peerages were created in the Peerage of England or the Peerage of Scotland . English peerages continued to carry the right to a seat in the House of Lords, while the Scottish peers elected representative peers from among their own number to sit in the Lords.

Peerages continued to be created by the Crown , either in the new Peerage of Great Britain , which was that of the new kingdom and meant a seat in its House of Lords, or in the Peerage of Ireland , giving the holder a seat in the Irish House of Lords . See also Jacobitism References ^ "After the political union of England and Scotland in 1707, the nation's official name became 'Great Britain'", The American Pageant, Volume 1, Cengage Learning (2012) ^ "From 1707 until 1801 Great Britain was the official designation of the kingdoms of England and Scotland". The Standard Reference Work: For the Home, School and Library, Volume 3, Harold Melvin Stanford (1921) ^ "In 1707, on the union with Scotland, 'Great Britain' became the official name of the British Kingdom, and so continued until the union with Ireland in 1801".

United States Congressional serial set, Issue 10; Issue 3265 (1895) ^ The Acts of Union passed by both parliaments in 1800 and which created the United Kingdom, came into effect on 1 January 1801. ^ "British History – The 1798 Irish Rebellion" . BBC. 5 November 2009. Retrieved 23 April 2010. ^ Daniel Gahan, Rebellion!: Ireland in 1798 (1998) ^ John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle (1996), vol 3 cover 1797 to his death in 1806. ^ Chris Cook & John Stevenson, British Historical Facts 1760–1830 (The Macmillan Press, 1980) Further reading Black, Jeremy. Britain as a Military Power, 1688–1815 (2002) excerpt and text search Brumwell, Stephen, and W.A. Speck.

Cassell's Companion to Eighteenth Century Britain (2002), an encyclopaedia Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (2nd ed. 2009) excerpt and text search Daunton, Martin. Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain 1700–1850 (1995) excerpt and text search Hilton, Boyd. A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?: England 1783–1846 (New Oxford History of England) (2008) excerpt and text search Hoppit, Julian. A Land of Liberty?: England 1689–1727 (New Oxford History of England) (2000) James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (2001) Langford, Paul. A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (New Oxford History of England) (1994) excerpt and text search O'Gorman, Frank.

The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History 1688–1832 (1997) 415pp Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century (2nd ed. 1990) excerpt and text search Rule, John. Albion's People: English Society 1714–1815 (1992) Speck, W.A. Literature and Society in Eighteenth-Century England: Ideology, Politics and Culture, 1680–1820 (1998) Watson, J. Steven. The Reign of George III, 1760–1815 (Oxford History of England) (1960) Williams, Basil. The Whig Supremacy 1714–1760 (1939) online edition External links United Kingdom of Great Britain | Nations Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia United Kingdom of Great Britain 1,404pages on This article is about the historical kingdom, before the 1800 Act of Union with Ireland. For the modern state, see United Kingdom .

Kingdom of Great Britain1 Territory of the Kingdom of Great Britain Capital London Language(s) English (throughout) Welsh (Wales) Government Constitutional monarchy Monarch - 1707–14 Anne - 1714–27 George I - 1727–60 George II - 1760–1801 George III Prime Minister - 1721–42 Robert Walpole - 1783–1801 William Pitt the Younger Legislature Parliament - Upper house House of Lords - Lower house House of Commons Historical era 18th century - 1707 Union 1 May - 1801 Union 1 January Area - 1801 230,977 km² (89,181 sq mi) Population - 1801 est.

16,345,646 Density 70.8 /km² (183.3 /sq mi) Currency Pound sterling 1 Scots : Kinrick o Great Breetain, Welsh : Teyrnas Prydain Fawr 2 The Royal motto used in Scotland was In My Defens God Me Defend . 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. 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 . Contents Edit 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 in 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 thrones 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] Name Edit Occasionally, the Kingdom of Great Britain is given the alternative name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which is often shortened to United Kingdom. There is substantial debate over whether the latter name is acceptable. [7] The Treaty of Union refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain in several places: it is argued that the word "United" is only an adjective , and not part of the style, citing the subsequent Acts of Union themselves, which explicitly state the name of the new state: that England and Scotland were "united into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". [8] The name "United Kingdom" is sometimes preferred for purposes of continuity, particularly in the military and colonial spheres. At the time of the Act of Union 1800, which unambiguously styled the new state as the "United Kingdom", the British were embroiled in the Great French War and the British Empire possessed many colonies in the Americas , India, and Australia.

Some who would otherwise prefer the term "Kingdom of Great Britain" thus use "United Kingdom" to avoid using two different names for a single military and colonial power, which may confuse the discussion. Britain in the 18th century Further information: British Empire , Georgian era , and History of the United Kingdom England and the Netherlands entered the Nine Years' War as allies, but the conflict - waged in Europe and overseas between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance - left the English a stronger colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of their military budget on the costly land war in Europe. [9] The 18th century would see England (after 1707, Britain) rise to be the world's dominant colonial power, and France becoming its main rival on the imperial stage. [10] The death of Charles II of Spain on Nov. 1, 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philippe of Anjou , a grandson of the King of France, raised the prospect of the unification of France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for Britain and the other powers of Europe.

In 1701, Britain, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession . The conflict, which France and Spain were to lose, lasted until 1714. At the concluding peace Treaty of Utrecht , Philip renounced his and his descendents' right to the French throne. Spain lost its empire in Europe, and though it kept its empire in the Americas and the Philippines, it was irreversibly weakened as a power. The British Empire was territorially enlarged: from France, Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia , and from Spain, Gibraltar and Minorca . Gibraltar , which is still a British overseas territory to this day, became a critical naval base and allowed Britain to control the Atlantic entry and exit point to the Mediterranean . Deeper political integration of Britain had been a key policy of Queen Anne (reigned 1702–14), the last Stuart monarch of England and Scotland and the only Stuart monarch of the Kingdom of Great Britain). Under the aegis of the Queen and her advisors a Treaty of Union was drawn up, and negotiations between England and Scotland began in earnest in 1706.

The Acts of Union received royal assent in 1707, uniting the separate Parliaments and crowns of England and Scotland and forming the Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne became formally the first occupant of the unified British throne and in line with Article 22 of the Treaty of Union , Scotland sent 45 MPs to the new parliament of Great Britain . [11] Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey , by Francis Hayman (c. 1762) The Seven Years' War , which began in 1754, was the first war waged on a global scale, fought in Europe, India, North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and coastal Africa. The signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763) had important consequences for Britain and its empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power there was effectively ended with the ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control) and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain.

In India, the Carnatic War had left France still in control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and an obligation to support British client states, effectively leaving the future of India to Britain. The British victory over France in the Seven Years War therefore left Britain as the world's dominant colonial power. [12] During the 1760s and 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the British Parliament's ability to tax American colonists without their consent. [13] Disagreement turned to violence and in 1775 the American Revolutionary War began. The following year, the colonists declared the independence of the United States and with economical and naval assistance from France, would go on to win the war in 1783. The loss of the United States , at the time Britain's most populous colony, is seen by historians as the event defining the transition between the "first" and "second" empires, [14] in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa.

Adam Smith 's Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal. The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1783 [15] confirmed Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success. During its first century of operation, the focus of the British East India Company had been trade, not the building of an empire in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the British East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the La Compagnie française des Indes orientales , during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s. The Battle of Plassey , which saw the British, led by Robert Clive , defeat the French and their Indian allies, left the Company in control of Bengal and a major military and political power in India.

In the following decades it gradually increased the size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force of the Indian Army , 80% of which was composed of native Indian sepoys . In 1770, James Cook had discovered the eastern coast of Australia whilst on a scientific voyage to the South Pacific. In 1778, Joseph Banks , Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement, and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788. At the threshold to the 19th century, Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon , in a struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented a contest of ideologies between the two nations. [16] It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was threatened: Napoleon threatened invasion of Britain itself, and with it, a fate similar to the countries of continental Europe that his armies had overrun. The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones that Britain invested large amounts of capital and resources to win.

French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy , which won a decisive victory over the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805. Monarchs

Question: On 1 May 1707, who became the first sovereign of the "Kingdom of Great Britain"?
Answer: Queen Anne