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The Treaty of Union is the name given to the agreement that led to the creation of Great Britain,〔(Acts of Union 1707 ) parliament.uk, accessed 31 December 2010〕〔(Uniting the kingdom? ) nationalarchives.gov.uk, accessed 31 December 2010〕〔(Making the Act of Union 1707 ) scottish.parliament.uk, accessed 31 December 2010〕〔(The Union of the Parliaments 1707 ) Learning and Teaching Scotland, accessed 2 September 2010〕 the political union of the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland, which took effect on 1 May 1707. The details of the Treaty were agreed on 22 July 1706, and separate Acts of Union were then passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland to ratify the Treaty. ==Background== Queen Elizabeth I of England (and of Ireland) died without issue on 24 March 1603, dissolving the Tudor dynasty. The throne fell immediately and uncontroversially to her double first cousin twice removed, King James VI of Scotland, a member of House of Stuart and son of Mary, Queen of Scots. He assumed the throne of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland as King James I in the Union of the Crowns in 1603. This personal union somewhat assuaged constant English fears of Scottish cooperation with France, especially in a hypothetical French invasion of Britain. After that personal union, people widely discussed the idea of uniting the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England. Nevertheless, Acts of Parliament attempting to unite the two countries failed in 1606, in 1667, and in 1689. The Company of Scotland received an investment equal to one-quarter of all money circulating in the Kingdom of Scotland and sponsored the Darien scheme, an ill-fated attempt to establish a Scottish trading colony in the Isthmus of Panama. The colonisation began in 1698 and ended in a military confrontation with the Spanish in 1700; however, most colonists died of tropical diseases. In the face of opposition by English commercial interests, the Company of Scotland raised subscriptions in Amsterdam, Hamburg and London for the scheme.For his part, King William III had given only lukewarm support to the whole Scottish colonial endeavour. England was at war with France and hence did not want to offend Spain, which claimed the territory as part of New Granada. England was also under pressure from the London-based East India Company, who were keen to maintain their monopoly over English foreign trade. It therefore forced the English and Dutch investors to withdraw. Next, the East India Company threatened legal action on the grounds that the Scots had no authority from the king to raise funds outside the English realm, and obliged the promoters to refund subscriptions to the Hamburg investors. This left no source of finance but Scotland itself. This economic disaster for the investing Scottish elites diminished the resistance of the Scottish political establishment (i.e. the nobility) to the idea of political union with England. The Scottish nobility ultimately supported the union despite some popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere.〔(Scottish Referendums ) BBC News, accessed 23 October 2008〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Treaty of Union」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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