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James Vi's Distinct Parliamentary History

298 Words2 Pages
If James VI had had his way Scotland’s distinct parliamentary history would have ended in the years immediately after 1603. The king’s vision of union was far deeper than the dynastic accident that resulted in the Stewarts ruling over the separate kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland. He aimed at something much more ambitious, imagining a British people ruled by a British emperor. One crucial step on the road to that ambition was the union of the English and Scottish parliaments, a project James set in motion almost immediately, placing it before his two parliaments in 1604. What he encountered was outright hostility in England where the house of commons would consider only a ‘perfect union’ in which the Scottish parliament was folded
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