A brief description of the formation of the UK through invasion, union of the crowns and its domination by England.
The Kingdom of England, formed in 927, expanded through invasion. In the late 13th century, King Edward I conquered the western Principality of Wales, claiming it as a territory of England.
Scotland emerged from the First and SecNond Wars of Scottish Independence with its sovereignty intact. Wales, meanwhile, remained a conquered territory. Beginning with Edward I, English monarchs gave their successors the title of “Prince of Wales” to signify their control over the territory. Still, Wales was not an official part of the Kingdom of England until the 1530s and ‘40s. Under King Henry VIII, England passed Acts of Union extending English laws and norms into Wales. This was the first major political union in what would become the U.K.
When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, the next person in line to the throne was her cousin, King James VI of Scotland. Now, he gained a second name: King James I of England. Even though Scotland and England shared the same king, they were still two politically separate kingdoms, each with their own parliament. Over the next century, there were several failed attempts to merge them into one nation. These attempts ended in 1707, when England and Scotland united as “Great Britain”.
King James VI of Scotland was also King James I of England and of Ireland, too. Back in the 1540s, Ireland become a dependent kingdom of England, and the 1542 Crown of Ireland Act mandated that the king of England was now also the king of Ireland. The first person to hold both titles was Henry VIII. The last was George III, who oversaw the 1801 creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. England used its 1707 union with Scotland as a model for Great Britain’s 1801 union with Ireland.