A view of the progress toward the Act of Union in 1707
England and Scotland had been enemies for many centuries, so what brought the two nations closer in the lead up to their union?
James IV of Scotland married Henry VIII’s sister Margaret Tudor, and during the Reformation, Scottish Protestants turned to the Protestant English to oppose the Catholic French.
James VI of Scotland and I of England dreamed of a united kingdom of Great Britain, and Scots and English increasingly operated as if they were two parts of one country, particularly in religion. The Scots played a vital role in England’s civil wars but when they crowned Charles II in Edinburgh in 1651, Cromwell stormed north and imposed rule from London. England and Scotland were uneasily united until the Restoration in 1660.