Birth of the Union[edit]

Main articles: Treaty of Union and Acts of Union 1707

See also: Union of the Crowns and History of the formation of the United Kingdom

"Articles of Union with Scotland", 1707

The Kingdom of Great Britain came into being on 1 May 1707, as a result of the political union of the
Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland. The terms of the union had
been negotiated the previous year, and laid out in the Treaty of Union. The parliaments of Scotland and
of England then each ratified the treaty via respective Acts of Union.[5]

Although politically separate states, England and Scotland had shared a monarch since 1603 when on
the death of the childless Elizabeth I, James VI of Scotland became, additionally, James I of England, in
an event known as the Union of the Crowns. Slighly more than one-hundred years later, the Treaty of
Union enabled the two kingdoms to be combined into a single kingdom, merging the two parliaments
into a single parliament of Great Britain. Queen Anne, who was reigning at the time of the union, had
favoured deeper political integration between the two kingdoms and became the first monarch of Great
Britain. The union was valuable to England's security because Scotland relinquished first, the right to
choose a different monarch on Anne's death and second, the right to independently ally with a
European power, which could then use Scotland as a base for the invasion of England.

Although now a single kingdom, certain aspects of the former independent kingdoms remained
separate, as agreed in the terms in the Treaty of Union. Scottish and English law remained separate, as
did the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Anglican Church of England. England and Scotland also
continued to each have its own system of education.

The creation of Great Britain happened during the War of the Spanish Succession, in which just before
his death in 1702 William III had reactivated the Grand Alliance against France. His successor, Anne,
continued the war. The Duke of Marlborough won a series of brilliant victories over the French,
England's first major battlefield successes on the Continent since the Hundred Years War. France was
nearly brought to its knees by 1709, when King Louis XIV made a desperate appeal to the French people.
Afterwards, his general Marshal Villars managed to turn the tide in favour of France. A more peaceminded government came to power in Great Britain, and the treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt in 1713
1714 ended the war.

Hanoverian kings[edit]

George I in 1714, by Godfrey Kneller

Queen Anne died in 1714, and the Elector of Hanover, George Louis, became king as George I (1714
1727). He paid more attention to Hanover and surrounded himself with Germans, making him an
unpopular king, However he did build up the army and created a more stable political system in Britain
and helped bring peace to northern Europe.[6][7] Jacobite factions seeking a Stuart restoration
remained strong; they instigated a revolt in 17151716. The son of James II planned to invade England,
but before he could do so, John Erskine, Earl of Mar, launched an invasion from Scotland, which was
easily defeated.[8]

George II (17271760) enhanced the stability of the constitutional system, with a government run by Sir
Robert Walpole during the period 173042.[9] He built up the first British Empire, strengthening the
colonies in the Caribbean and North America. In coalition with the rising power Prussia, defeated France
in the Seven Years' War (17561763), and won full control of Canada.[10]

George III reigned 17601820; he was born in Britain, never visited Hanover, and spoke English as his
first language. Frequently reviled by Americans as a tyrant and the instigator of the American War of
Independence, he was insane off and on after 1788 as his eldest son served as regent.[11] The last king
to dominate government and politics, his long reign is noted for losing the first British Empire with a loss
in the American Revolutionary War (1783), as France sought revenge for its defeat in the Seven Years
War by aiding the Americans. The reign was notable for the building of a second empire based in India,
Asia and Africa, the beginnings of the industrial revolution that made Britain an economic powerhouse,
and above all the life and death struggle with the French, the French Revolutionary Wars 17931802,
ending in a draw and a short truce, and the epic Napoleonic Wars (18031815), ending with the decisive
defeat of Napoleon.[12]

South Sea Bubble[edit]

The era was prosperous as entrepreneurs extended the range of their business around the globe. The
South Sea Bubble was a business enterprise that exploded in scandal. The South Sea Company was a
private business corporation set up in London ostensibly to grant trade monopolies in South America. Its
actual purpose was to re-negotiate previous high-interest government loans amounting to 31 million
through market manipulation and speculation. It issued stock four times in 1720 that reached about
8,000 investors. Prices kept soaring every day, from 130 a share to 1,000, with insiders making huge
paper profits. The Bubble collapsed overnight, ruining many speculators. Investigations showed bribes

had reached into high placeseven to the king. Robert Walpole managed to wind it down with minimal
political and economic damage, although some losers fled to exile or committed suicide.[13][14]

Warfare and finance[edit]

From 1700 to 1850, Britain was involved in 137 wars or rebellions. It maintained a relatively large and
expensive Royal Navy, along with a small standing army. When the need arose for soldiers it hired
mercenaries or financed allies who fielded armies. The rising costs of warfare forced a shift in
government financing from the income from royal agricultural estates and special imposts and taxes to
reliance on customs and excise taxes and, after 1790, an income tax. Working with bankers in the City,
the government raised large loans during wartime and paid them off in peacetime. The rise in taxes
amounted to 20% of national income, but the private sector benefited from the increase in economic
growth. The demand for war supplies stimulated the industrial sector, particularly naval supplies,
munitions and textiles, which gave Britain an advantage in international trade during the postwar
years.[15][16][17]

The French Revolution polarized British political opinion in the 1790s, with conservatives outraged at
killing of the king, the expulsion of the nobles, and the Reign of Terror. Britain was at war against France
almost continuously from 1793 until the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815. Conservatives castigated
every radical opinion in Britain as "Jacobin" (in reference to the leaders of the Terror), warning that
radicalism threatened an upheaval of British society. The Anti-Jacobin sentiment, well expressed by
Edmund Burke and many popular writers was strongest among the landed genrty and the upper
classes.[18]

British Empire[edit]
Main article: British Empire

Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, by Francis Hayman (c. 1762).
The Seven Years' War, which began in 1756, was the first war waged on a global scale, fought in Europe,
India, North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and coastal Africa. The signing of the Treaty of Paris
(1763) had important consequences for Britain and its empire. In North America, France's future as a
colonial power there was effectively ended with the ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable
French-speaking population under British control) and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain.
In India, the Carnatic War had left France still in control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and
an obligation to support British client states, effectively leaving the future of India to Britain. The British

victory over France in the Seven Years War therefore left Britain as the world's dominant colonial
power.[19]

During the 1760s and 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly
strained, primarily because of opposition to Parliament's repeated attempts to tax American colonists
without their consent.[20] Disagreement turned to violence and in 1775 the American Revolutionary
War began. In 1776 the Patriots expelled royal officials and declared the independence of the United
States of America. After capturing a British invasion army in 1777, the US formed an alliance with France
(and in turn Spain aided France), evening out the military balance. The British army controlled only a
handful of coastal cities. 178081 was a low point for Britain. Taxes and deficits were high, government
corruption was pervasive, and the war in America was entering its sixth year with no apparent end in
sight. The Gordon Riots erupted in London during the spring of 1781, in response to increased
concessions to Catholics by Parliament. In October 1781 Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army at
Yorktown, Virginia. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, formally terminating the war and recognising
the independence of the United States.[21]

British general John Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga (1777), painting by John Trumbull 1822
The loss of the Thirteen Colonies, at the time Britain's most populous colonies, marked the transition
between the "first" and "second" empires,[22] in which Britain shifted its attention to Asia, the Pacific
and later Africa. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, had argued that colonies were
redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the
first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal. The growth of
trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1783[23] confirmed Smith's view
that political control was not necessary for economic success.

During its first 100 years of operation, the focus of the British East India Company had been trade, not
the building of an empire in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th
century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the British East India Company struggled with its
French counterpart, the La Compagnie franaise des Indes orientales, during the Carnatic Wars of the
1740s and 1750s. The British, led by Robert Clive, defeated the French and their Indian allies in the
Battle of Plassey, leaving the Company in control of Bengal and a major military and political power in
India. In the following decades it gradually increased the size of the territories under its control, either
ruling directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force of the Indian Army, 80% of
which was composed of native Indian sepoys.

Voyages of the explorer James Cook

On 22 August 1770, James Cook discovered the eastern coast of Australia[24] while on a scientific
voyage to the South Pacific. In 1778, Joseph Banks, Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence
to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement, and in
1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788.

At the threshold to the 19th century, Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon, in a
struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented a contest of ideologies between the two nations.[25]

British Empire in 1921

The British government had somewhat mixed reactions to the outbreak of the French Revolution in
1789, and when war broke out on the Continent in 1792, it initially remained neutral. But the following
January, Louis XVI was beheaded. This combined with a threatened invasion of the Netherlands by
France spurred Britain to declare war. For the next 23 years, the two nations were at war except for a
short period in 18021803. Britain alone among the nations of Europe never submitted to or formed an
alliance with France. Throughout the 1790s, the British repeatedly defeated the navies of France and its
allies, but were unable to perform any significant land operations. An Anglo-Russian invasion of the
Netherlands in 1799 accomplished little except the capture of the Dutch fleet.

It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was threatened: Napoleon threatened invasion
of Britain itself, and with it, a fate similar to the countries of continental Europe that his armies had
overrun.