The United Kingdom is a country made up of four other countries; Scotland, Wales,
England and Northern Ireland. But each of the UK’s four nations have their own distinct cultures,
identities and histories, so why do they make up one greater state;
what was it that made the British Isles unite and what made most of Ireland leave?
Well, for hundreds of years the Kingdoms of England and Scotland were fierce rivals, mostly
they fought over whether Scotland, the smaller of the two, should accept English suzerainty, (Wales
by the way had already been conquered by England and was officially annexed in 1542) but 61 years
later in 1603, because of a marriage between the English Tudors and the Scottish Stuarts a century
earlier, the Scottish King, James VI, succeeded the childless Queen Elizabeth I as King of
England. His dynasty, the House of Stuart, would rule both Kingdoms, as well as Ireland which was
already ruled by the English monarch, for the next century. Admittedly with one or two interruptions.
So, the Stuarts were the first to maintain lasting control over the entirety of the British Isles,
but they didn’t rule over a united state. England (Wales included), Scotland, and Ireland each
maintained their own separate parliaments, with their own laws and armies, all though Ireland in
particular was dominated by English nobles. James VI (who reigned as James I in England and Ireland)
continued the Tudor policy of establishing Irish Plantations, which were designed
to replace Ireland’s rebellious Catholic natives with loyal Protestant Englishman.
The largest plantation, in the north, Ulster, was founded in 1609 under James I. It saw
roughly 80,000 colonists, mostly from northern England and Southern Scotland, arrive by 1641
forcing out much of the native Irish population of Ulster. Remember that, it’ll be important later.
The only concrete thing that held the three Stuart Kingdoms together
was their shared monarch. Which did become a bit of a problem when in 1649, after two Civil wars,
King Charles I of Scotland, England, and Ireland, was beheaded by English
Parliamentarians and England was made into a Republic; the Commonwealth.
It was led by Parliament as its legislature and a council of state as it’s executive. It’s army,
the New Model Army, was led by Oliver Cromwell who had been instrumental in winning the two
civil wars that had gotten rid of monarchy, but before that had been basically a nobody.
Under Cromwell, the New Model Army conquered Scotland during a campaign (somewhat misleadingly
called the Third English Civil War) which lasted from 1649 until the end of 1651.
The Parliament of Scotland had accepted Charles I’s son, Charles II, as its King after his
father’s execution by the English, but it had also declared him to be King of England and Ireland,
claiming Commonwealth territory. Naturally, Charles II’s claim to all of his father’s thrones
got under the skin of the newly-minted republican Commonwealth, so they invaded Scotland and after
two important defeats exactly a year apart, (the battles of Dunbar and Worcester) Charles II fled
to the continent, the Scottish Parliament was abolished, and England and Scotland were united,
not just in loyalty to one person, but also politically, for the first time in history.
Though, it was just England and Scotland. Back in 1641 as England was heading towards Civil war,
Irish Catholics (meaning most of Ireland) revolted, beginning the Irish confederate wars.
But come 1650, the New Model Army crushed the Irish just as effectively as it had the Scots,
but in Ireland Cromwell resorted to barbaric tactics, slaughtering
hundreds of thousands of Catholic Irish, and handing their land over to Protestants.
By 1653 Ireland was solidly under Commonwealth control.
His military conquests made Oliver Cromwell by far the most powerful man in the Commonwealth but he
wouldn’t officially be in charge until December of 1653 when the Instrument of Government made
him Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. But unlike the Stuarts who
had ruled three disparate Kingdoms, Cromwell ruled a unitary state. All three Kingdoms answered to
one Parliament in London, which in turn, due to his control of the military, effectively
answered to Cromwell. In 1660, a year after the Lord Protector's death, Charles II was invited
to return from exile and to his three thrones. England, Scotland and Ireland were separate again.
But many in England and Scotland in particular were not overly happy about that, albeit,
for very different reasons. In 1689 in what became known as the Glorious Revolution,
Charles II’s Catholic brother, who became King in 1685, was overthrown by his Protestant daughter,
Mary II and son-in-law, William III, who was also the Stadtholder of the Netherlands.
Subsequently the English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701 which banned Catholics from
inheriting the English and Irish thrones. But not necessarily the Scottish one. The Scots passed the
Act of Security in 1704 which gave it’s Parliament the right to choose the monarch's successor,
and worryingly to the English, explicitly forbade them from choosing the same monarch as England.
If, England didn’t grant Scotland access to her global trade network.
It was worrying to the English because up until the Union of the Crowns, Scotland had fought
against England (usually by siding with France against them) at practically every opportunity,
and who wants an army of angry Scots coming down and raiding you every two minutes?
But Scotland’s desire to reap the rewards of England’s booming economy
did give the English an in. Actually though it was more of a need than a desire;
their participation in the Nine Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession
had hurt Scottish trade, a famine in the 1690’s wiped out roughly 10% of the Scottish population,
and that’s not even to mention that Scotland had sunk most of her budget into a failed colonial
expedition to South America between 1695 and 1700. So, in 1706 motivated on one end by security,
and the other economic stability, the Treaty of Union was signed between the two Kingdoms (it
was ratified in 1707). The Treaty formed a new Kingdom, Great Britain. Ireland,
though, remained separate, but still ruled by the British monarch, for nearly another hundred years.
Still, both houses of the Irish Parliament did pass addresses to the monarch expressing support
for “a still more comprehensive Union”, but don’t mistake that for popular support for unification
with Great Britain, in Ireland. Ireland’s majority Catholic population still suffered under and
resented the Protestant Ascendancy (which gave a monopoly on power to Anglican Protestants and
originally the English, then British, Parliament supremacy over the Irish one) and only a tiny
portion of the Kingdom’s population, all of whom were Protestant Anglicans, were eligible to vote.
In 1714 Queen Anne, who had succeeded William and Mary and was the first Queen of Great Britain,
died childless, ending the House of Stuart’s rule in Great Britain and Ireland.
She was succeeded by her closest Protestant relative, a German aristocrat,
who became King George I of the new house of Hannover. But supporters of
Anne and Mary II’s exiled father and brother, known as Jacobites,
tried unsuccessfully to restore to power to the Catholic branch of the house of Stuart
half a dozen times in the 50 years following the Glorious Revolution. They found support
in Ireland, which was still majority Catholic and that’s where, after the revolution, James II fled.
He was defeated and the Irish, re-subjugated, by William III during the Williamite War in the
1690’s. But in 1782, the Irish Parliament passed the Declaration of Rights which demanded their
legislative independence from the Parliament of Great Britain. In no small part because
of pressure put on Britain as a result of the American Revolution, they acquiesced,
and Ireland was granted a new Constitution. For the next 18 years they held a similar position
to Scotland’s between the Union of the Crowns and the Acts of Union; they shared the same
monarch as Great Britain, but were more of an equal partner rather than a dominated subject.
Of course, the Irish Parliament was still made up entirely of Protestants, most of whom
were descended from English settlers, so nothing drastic changed for Ireland’s Catholic majority.
In 1798 Presbytarian Irish (Protestants, but not the empowered Anglican Protestants), inspired by
the establishment of a republic in France, rose up in rebellion not just against the British,
but monarchy itself. They were quickly joined by the majority-Catholics and were supported by
France. They were put down by Irish Loyalists and British troops by the end of the year.
But the rebellion proved to the British establishment that in order to control
Ireland they would have to unite the two Kingdoms. However the Irish Parliament only
passed the incredibly unpopular Act of Union, 1800, for one real reason;
Irish MP’s and Lords who opposed the Act, were bribed out of the way.
So, excluding Cromwell’s Commonwealth, the British Isles were unified as one state,
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for 121 years between 1801 and 1922. (The Isle of
Man, Jersey, and Guernsey aren’t technically parts of the UK, but are crown dependencies)
But the Irish, who had never been fond of the Union in the first place would be the ones to
bring that streak to an end. The Irish war of independence and the subsequent Anglo-Irish
treaty saw the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The treaty theoretically called for all
of Ireland to be a part of the Free State, but it also gave an opt out to 6 counties in the north,
which largely because of the old Ulster Plantations, still supported the British.
Northern Ireland immediately exercised their right to remain a part of the UK.
The Irish Free State was a British Dominion, much like Canada or Australia,
not an independent country, but it was, at least, separate from the UK. All though the
UK’s name wasn’t changed until 1927. In 1931 the Statute of Westminster effectively made
all of the Dominions independent from Britain, including the Irish Free State, which changed its
name to just Ireland (despite not controlling the North) in 1937 and abolished the monarchy in 1948.
Many in the new Republic of Ireland and still some in the North, did want to see a united
Ireland though, free from British rule, so they took up arms against British and Unionist forces,
fighting all the way up until 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement brought peace to Ireland. It also
gave Northern Ireland the right to join the Republic should it’s people ever choose to,
but so far, despite losing most of Ireland, the UK as an institution has remained intact.
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I’ve been James and thank you for watching Look Back History.