Forging the State: European State Formation and the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707

This book highlights the continental background to the formation of the United Kingdom. The 1707 Union was only one example of a more generalised process of European state formation and national realignment during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This volume provides a number of case studies of other contemporaneous attempts at union, ranging from Poland-Lithunia, Aragon and Castile, Ireland, and Austria-Hungary. While Scots received much of their legal, intellectual and political traditions from northern Protestant Europe, this book argues that southern, central and Catholic Europe also provided influential examples of state formation and union. The final two chapters highlight the medieval origins of the debate on Scottish union with England, as well as the profound impact of the 1707 treaty at the local level.