Act of Union (1707).

The union of the Parliaments between Scotland and England marked the end of Scottish and, what is often not recognized, English national independence and the formal beginning of the state known as Great Britain. More significant was the subsequent evolution of new political and cultural relationships between the two states. On the European stage, the union represented one of the first instances of incorporation of two states into one by means other than conquest, by the consent of both states’ representative and legislative bodies.