The Union of England and Scotland in 1707 joined the kingdoms within a political order transformed by the Glorious Revolution. The union followed Parliament’s ascendancy over the English monarchy: after 1688, Parliament controlled state policy, and in 1707 England and Scotland were united as Great Britain. The change extended a new balance of political authority, but it did not make the system democratic or equally representative.

Constitutional Change and the Union

The Union belongs to a sequence of constitutional changes after the Glorious Revolution. Parliament and William negotiated a new constitution, with principles set out in the Declaration of Rights in 1689. Those principles limited the monarch’s ability to suspend laws or impose taxes without Parliament’s consent, and required parliamentary approval for a standing army. The text left some matters vague, including how free parliamentary elections should be and how frequently Parliament had to meet. Yet, as authority and decision-making shifted to Parliament, William also abandoned practices previously exercised by kings.

The book identifies the Union of England and Scotland in 1707 as the point at which the two kingdoms became Great Britain. Its significance in this account is not simply territorial: the union followed the end of absolutism in England and the consolidation of Parliament’s control over state policy. The institutional shift preceded the union and shaped the political context in which it occurred.

Parliament’s New Powers and Interests

Parliament’s control changed the incentives governing policy. Many parliamentarians had investments in trade and industry and therefore had a strong interest in enforcing property rights, which Stuart kings had frequently infringed. Parliament also took control of government spending. Unlike the Stuarts, who had sought to strengthen the state while controlling its resources, Parliament was willing to raise taxes and spend public money on purposes it valued, especially strengthening the navy to protect overseas mercantile interests.

This was a redistribution of political authority, not the arrival of universal representation. Parliament offered access to policy-making beyond the king’s immediate control, partly because its members were elected, but that access remained narrow. In the eighteenth century, fewer than 2 percent of the population could vote, and all voters had to be men. Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield—the cities where the Industrial Revolution took place—had no independent representation in Parliament. The Union thus belongs to a story of greater institutional pluralism whose reach was still sharply restricted.

A Contingent Institutional Turning Point

The book presents institutional change as the result of conflict and contingency rather than an inevitable progression. The Glorious Revolution was one critical juncture: a disruption of the existing balance that weakened those in power and created new possibilities for their opponents. Inclusive institutions, in this account, emerge through struggles between elites seeking to preserve their power and groups seeking to limit it. Their eventual formation is uncertain even when later developments can appear inevitable in retrospect.

The Union’s place in this sequence helps distinguish expanded parliamentary authority from complete political inclusion. Parliament’s supremacy created firmer conditions for property rights and made policy responsive to a wider range of interests than royal government had been. But restricted voting and the absence of representation for major industrial cities show that pluralism remained incomplete. The 1707 Union therefore marks the extension of a post-revolutionary political settlement, not the end of conflict over who could participate in governing Britain.