Introduction

Abstract

When is a kingdom not a kingdom? One answer to that riddle is when it does not have a king. Seventeenth century Scotland had kings and queens, but after 1603 they were absentee, and all but one of them had no sustained experience of Scotland. Furthermore, only James VI can reasonably be described as a Scot. Charles I was born in Dunfermline but migrated to England as an infant, and the remaining monarchs who ruled the country until the arrival of the German George I in 1714 were English with the exception of the Dutchman, William II. Yet multiple monarchies were not uncommon in early modern Europe, and the Spanish, Danish and Polish monarchies all experienced problems arising from this phenomenon. The seventeenth century saw a succession of crises in states like Bohemia, Portugal and Ireland which were bound to supranational sovereign powers. The Anglo-Scottish regal union, therefore, was only one among a number of troubled unions. What made it peculiar was that in 1707 the union between them was freely strengthened.