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( Union of the Crowns)
constituent countries of the United Kingdom The Union of the Crowns refers to the accession of James VI, King of Scots, to the throne of England in March 1603, thus uniting Scotland and England under one monarch. This followed the death of his unmarried and childless cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. The term itself, though now generally accepted, is misleading; for properly speaking this was merely a personal or dynastic union, the Crowns remaining both distinct and separate, despite James's best efforts to create a new "imperial" throne of 'Great Britain'. England and Scotland continued to be independent states, despite sharing a Monarch, until the Acts of Union in 1707 during the reign of the last monarch of the Stuart Dynasty, Queen Anne. In August 1503 James IV, King of Scots, married Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, and the spirit of the new age was celebrated by the poet William Dunbar in The Thistle and the Rose.[1]
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