Union with Scotland Act 1706
English Union Act read and recorded in the Scottish Parliament
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The important object in Edinburgh that day was not a new bill but a sealed, authenticated copy of a law already enacted in London.
19 March 1707: paperwork arrives from Westminster
On 19 March 1707 the Scottish Parliament received and read the authenticated exemplification of the English act ratifying the Union, and ordered the act and its Union provisions entered in its own record.
The document recorded that Queen Anne had already given royal assent to the English bill at Westminster on 6 March. Matthew Johnson, Clerk of the English Parliament, had certified the attached copy on 7 March.
Why this is not the ratification date
English ratification became law by royal assent on 6 March. What happened in Edinburgh on the 19th was the reading and recording of authenticated English paperwork.
Nor is 19 March a calendar conversion of 6 March. Both are Julian dates under the calendar Britain then used, and 6 March Julian corresponded to 17 March Gregorian.
Six days from the end
The Scottish parliamentary record now held authenticated evidence of England's matching ratification. The settlement it confirmed gave Scotland 16 representative peers and 45 members of the Commons.
The Scottish Parliament held its final sitting on 25 March. The Union itself remained scheduled to take effect on 1 May.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes
How this was checked
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What the sources leave uncertain
- The event itself is securely dated, but the supplied title identifies the wrong event. English ratification became law through royal assent on 6 March, not 19 March.
- This was the same physical day called 19 March under Britain’s Julian calendar. It was not a Gregorian conversion of 6 March; 6 March Julian corresponded to 17 March Gregorian.
- The English statute is conventionally titled the Union with Scotland Act 1706 because of contemporary English legal-year and statutory-dating conventions, although royal assent occurred in what modern historians call 1707.