Anne
1702–1714
As the
second daughter of James VII/II, Anne (born in 1665) should have succeeded Mary
in 1694. Instead, she allowed William to remain on the throne and did not
herself become queen until his death in 1702. She was the last officially
recognised Stuart monarch and also the last monarch of an independent Scotland.
Anne presided over the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, something both countries had opposed for centuries. The difference now was that the English were at war with the French (who had recognised the legitimacy of James VII/II’s son) and therefore threatened the Scots with trade sanctions to force them into a permanent alliance. Anne thought the move would benefit the Scots and was delighted when the crosses of St Andrew and St George were combined in the Union Flag. She outlived all her seventeen children to die in 1714.
James VIII/II
did not reign
Anne was succeeded by Prince George of Hanover, a great-grandson of James VI/I. Although the Scots had recognised him as king, many felt that James VII/II’s removal had been unconstitutional and that his son James — the Old Pretender — was therefore the legitimate ruler. These Jacobites toasted "the King over the water" and longed for his return. James refused to renounce Catholicism and arrived in Scotland too late to play any meaningful part in the lacklustre Jacobite rebellion of 1715. He died in France in 1766.
Charles III
did not reign
Born in exile in 1720,
Bonnie Prince Charlie was good-looking and romantic — a far more appealing
figure than his father. He inspired the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, landing in
Scotland with just seven companions in a desperate attempt to regain the crown
for his family.
The rebellion might have succeeded: a Jacobite army won the battle of Prestonpans and invaded England as far as Derby before deciding to withdraw. It was pursued by professional English troops who crushed the rebellion at Culloden in 1746. Charles spent five months on the run, hidden by Flora MacDonald and others, before escaping to France where he died in 1788. He is commemorated at the Glenfinnan Monument at the head of Loch Sheil.
Henry IX
did not reign
Henry, a Roman Catholic cardinal at the age of twenty-two, and later an archbishop, never set foot in the British Isles. He retired to Frascati, south of Rome, and died a bachelor in 1807.
As the last of the male line, he left the Stuart crown jewels in his will to the future George IV.
See below for the current monarch, Elizabeth.
Scotland in The United Kingdom
There have been several Acts of Union, statutes that accomplished the joining of England with Wales (1536), England and Wales with Scotland (1707), Great Britain with Ireland (1800), and the British provinces of Upper and Lower Canada (1840) in North America.
Act of Union of 1707
The Act of Union passed in 1707 by the parliaments of England and Scotland created the Kingdom of Great Britain. Although Scotland retained its judicial system and its Presbyterian church, its parliament was joined with that of England. Henceforth, Scotland sent 45 elected members to the British House of Commons and 16 of its peers to the House of Lords. Scots received the same trading rights as the English had in England and its overseas empire. Scotland also received money (called “the Equivalent”) equal to the share it was assuming of England’s national debt. The union, like the Revolution of 1688, was opposed by many of the Highland Scots, who rose in support of James VII’s son in the Jacobite rebellions of 1708, 1715, and 1745 to 1746. Following the defeat of the 1745 Rebellion, the government forced the break-up of the clan system in the Highlands.
The crowns of the two countries had been united in 1603 when James Stuart (James VI of Scotland) succeeded Elizabeth I as James I of England, but the kingdoms otherwise remained separate. In 1654 the countries were united as a commonwealth under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, England and Scotland again became separate. Impetus for union came from disagreements between the two parliaments. These included Scotland’s refusal to approve the Act of Settlement (1701) passing the royal succession on to the German house of Hannover after the death of Queen Anne (the last Stuart sovereign), and from England’s fear that Scotland might seek to restore an exiled Catholic Stuart to the throne.
At the same time, Edinburgh, home of the Scottish Enlightenment, was becoming one of the most important cultural centres of 18th-century Europe. Among the outstanding Scottish thinkers of the time were the economist Adam Smith and the philosopher David Hume. Literary figures included Tobias Smollett, James Boswell, Robert Burns, and, somewhat later, Sir Walter Scott.
Industrialisation began in the late 1700s, and in the course of the 19th century, Scotland was transformed from an agricultural into an industrial nation. Its textile, steel, and shipbuilding industries made major contributions to Britain’s commercial greatness during this period, while Scottish statesmen and administrators helped govern the British Empire, and Scottish soldiers helped defend it.
Elizabeth I/II
1952–
Elizabeth traces her ancestry through George I to James VI/I and almost all the Scottish monarchs who went before, including Duncan. She is descended from Robert the Bruce through both parents, for her mother was a Scottish aristocrat, daughter of the Earl of Strathmore.
Born in 1926, Elizabeth became queen in 1952. Her three sons all went to school in Scotland, and Prince William is a student at St Andrews University. To celebrate her Golden Jubilee in 2002, Her Majesty has awarded City status to one of Scotland’s oldest Royal Burghs — Stirling: town of battle, coronation, beheading and burial. It was during Elizabeth’s reign that the Stone of Scone — a sacred relic stolen from the Scots in 1296 — was returned to its homeland after 700 years in Westminster Abbey.
With the decline of Britain as a world power in the second half of the 20th century, Scottish nationalism once again became a significant political force. Strident calls for independence were heard in the general elections in the mid-1970s. Although the Scots continue to insist on unique provisions of law and local government, the drive for separation has been muted in recent years by the creation of a devolved Scottish Parliament.
- Photos of many of the places mentioned in the text can be found in the Photo-tour.