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Great Britain

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Created From
Kingdom of England and Wales and the Kingdom of Scotland
Kingdom of Great Britain (Great Britain)
1707 - 1800
Became
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Great Britain
The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain, was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800.

The state was created following the Treaty of Union in 1706 and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707. It united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single, united kingdom, encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands.

It did not, in the Parliamentary Acts, include the Kingdom of Ireland which was already governed by an executive order from the Parliament at Westminster and under the control of a Lord Deputy or viceroy; effectively part of England.

The unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government, based at Westminster. The former kingdoms had been in personal union since James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland in 1603 following the death of Queen Elizabeth I, bringing about a "Union of the Crowns".

After the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the kingdom was in personal union with the Electorate of Hanover.

The years of the unified kingdom were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. Later, in 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the dominance of the British Empire, which was to be the foremost global power for over a century and later grew to become the largest empire in history.

On 1 January 1801, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

See the wikipedia article on the Kingdom of Great Britain for more.

Significant events of the 18th century
In the 18th Century Great Britain was one of the worlds "superpowers"; its main competitor being France. The early 18th Century saw the consolidation of the overseas territories in North America and the West Indies and their holdings in Africa, India and Indonesia.

The new treaty meant that the dominions of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, also called the Darien Company were ceded to Great Britain. The assets of East India Company were retained by the Company but the land became part of the British Empire.

1700 - 1714; War of the Spanish Succession. The death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip of Anjou, a grandson of the King of France, raised British fears of the unification of France, Spain and their colonies. In 1701, then England, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession. The conflict lasted until 1714, until France and Spain finally lost. At the concluding Treaty of Utrecht, Spain lost its empire in Europe, and, although it kept its empire in the Americas and the Philippines, it was irreversibly weakened as a great power. The new British Empire, based upon what until 1707 had been the English overseas possessions, was enlarged: from France, Great Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia, and from Spain it gained Gibraltar and Minorca. Gibraltar became a major naval base and allowed Great Britain to control the strait connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean The North American Theatre became known as Queen Anne's War.

1715; First Jacobite Rising. During the War of the Spanish Succession the French supported the Stuart cause in attempts to create a second front in Britain. In 1708 James Stuart, the Old Pretender, sailed from Dunkirk with 6000 French troops in nearly 30 ships of the French navy. His intended landing in the Firth of Forth was thwarted by the Royal Navy, under Admiral Byng. Over the protests of James, the French admiral chose not to risk a landing and opted to retreat instead of fight. The French fleet, pursued by the British round the north of Scotland, lost ships and most of their men in shipwrecks on the way back to Dunkirk, mainly on the Irish coast. Following the ascension of George I in 1714, Tory Jacobites in England conspired to organise armed rebellions against the new Hanoverian government. They were indecisive and frightened by government arrests of their leaders, however there was significant support for the cause in Scotland and Ireland and James' supporters rebelled against the ruling Government; the first Jacobite rebellion. Failure of the rebellion led to the Disarming and Clan Acts of 1716 and the Clearance of part of the Highlands, shifting the people, in the main to the North American Colonies.

1719; The rising of 1719 ("the Nineteen"). With France at peace with Britain, following the Treaty of Utrecht, the Jacobites found a new ally in Spain. An invasion force set sail in 1719 with two frigates to land in Scotland to raise the clans. Twenty-seven ships carried 5,000 soldiers to England, but the latter were dispersed by storms before they could land. When the two Spanish frigates successfully landed a party of Jacobites led by Lord Tullibardine and Earls Marischal with 300 Spanish soldiers at Loch Duich, they held Eilean Donan Castle but this was soon captured and destroyed by a Royal Naval reconnaissance force. They met only lukewarm support from a few clans. At the Battle of Glen Shiel, the Spanish and Jacobite soldiers were forced to surrender to government forces.

1755 - 1764 ; Seven Years' War. Is often regarded as the first global war and engagements were fought in every region of the globe. The conflict in India is termed the Third Carnatic War, while the fighting between Prussia and Austria is called the Third Silesian War. In the English-speaking British colonies in North America (present-day United States mainly as Canada knows it as the Seven Years' War) it is known as the French and Indian War. Swedish historiography uses the name Pommerska kriget (Pomeranian War), as Swedish involvement was limited to Pomerania in northern central Germany. A war between Britain and Spain from 1761-1763 was called the Anglo-Spanish War (1761-1763). The war was successful for Great Britain, which gained the bulk of New France in North America, Spanish Florida, some individual Caribbean islands in the West Indies, the colony of Senegal on the West African coast, and superiority over the French trading outposts on the Indian subcontinent.

1775 - 1783; American Revolutionary War. Started following resentment, primarily because of a failure to distribute land gained as a result of the Seven Years' War to local recipients and towards the British Parliament's ability to tax colonists in North America without their consent, it flared into a violent insurrection. In 1775, the American Revolutionary War began, as the Americans trapped the British army in Boston and suppressed the Loyalists who supported the Crown. In 1776 the Americans declared the independence of the United States of America. In 1777 and again in 1781, the American forces captured two main British armies. As a result of the furore raised in Great Britain, King George III lost control of Parliament. Parliament gained control over the ability to wage war and forced the Treaty of Paris by which Great Britain relinquished the Thirteen Colonies and recognised the United States.

As a result of the defeat in the American Revolutionary War between 40,000 and 60,000 Loyalists migrated to Canada. Most families were given free land to compensate their losses. Several thousand free blacks also arrived; most of them later went to Sierra Leone in Africa. The Constitutional Act of 1791 created the provinces of Upper Canada (mainly English-speaking) and Lower Canada (mainly French-speaking) to defuse tensions between the French and English-speaking communities.

The loss of the Thirteen Colonies in North America created the impetus for a shift in focus of foreign policy. In India focus shifted from a trading enterprise to part of the British Empire, Australia and New Zealand, following the exploration by Cook in the 1770's became a focus of migration, either forced or voluntary. In 1787 the First Fleet to Australia set sail, carrying the first shipment of convicts to the colony. It arrived in January 1788.

Monarchs of Great Britain

Queen Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714), the last Stuart monarch of England and Scotland was the ruling monarch and was instrumental in the agreement to the Treaty of the Union. She became the first monarch of Great Britain. Under the Act of Settlement 1701 all Catholics were disqualified from inheriting Anne's titles and thus the son of Sophia of Hanover, George, inherited. Sophia was the daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, and eldest daughter of James VI of Scotland, I of England.

George I (George Louis; German: Georg Ludwig) (28 May 1660 – 11 June 1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 until his death in 1727. Prior to his accession to the throne he was, from 1698, ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) in the Holy Roman Empire thus making Hannover part, by personal Union, of Great Britain and the cause of their support in military engagements of the day. He was followed by his son.

George II (George Augustus; German: Georg II. August); (30 October / 9 November 1683O – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death in 1760. He was followed by his son.

George III (George William Frederick); (4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820. He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire until his promotion to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors he was born in Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

Peerage of Great Britain
As a result of the Union of 1707, no new peerages were created in the Peerage of England or the Peerage of Scotland. English peerages continued to carry the right to a seat in the House of Lords, while the Scottish peers elected representative peers from among their own number to sit in the Lords.

Peerages continued to be created by the Crown, either in the new Peerage of Great Britain, which meant a seat in the House of Lords, or in the Peerage of Ireland, giving the holder a seat in the Irish House of Lords.

At the same time, and following the deposition by the parliament (Cromwell) in February 1689 (England and Ireland) and April 1689 (Scotland) of King James II and VII from the thrones of England and Ireland, he and his successors continued to create peers and baronets, which they believed was their right. This became known as the Jacobite Peerage. These creations were not and are not recognised in British law, but the titles were used in Continental Europe and recognised by France, Spain and the Papacy.

Indentured Servitude
During the period of rule of Great Britain it was common practise to use indentured labour. Until the late 18th century, indentured servitude was a very common practice in the the British colonies of the Americas. While it was often a way for poor people in Britain to emigrate to the colonies: they signed an indenture in return for a passage, it was also a system which was manipulated.

At times children were shipped by indenture, often ignorant of their choice, they were effectively "pressed" into indentured servitude and shipped to the Americas.

Wikitree is managing the profiles of those involved in these transportations through British Indentured Servitude and Indentured Children. This sub-project is managed by Grace McChesney.





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Categories: Great Britain