Great Britain was born twice: under Cromwell with a bayonet, under Anne with a signature
1707 is considered the birthday of a united Britain. But a common parliament, uniform taxes, and the abolition of internal customs between England and Scotland already existed in 1654. They were introduced by Oliver Cromwell.
On May 1, 1707, the Acts of Union came into effect in Edinburgh and London. One parliament. One flag. A single customs territory. England and Scotland disappeared as independent states and emerged as the Kingdom of Great Britain. Textbooks call this day the country's birthday.
Textbooks forget that Great Britain was born before. Half a century earlier. Under a different name, with a different signature, and under completely different circumstances. The first edition was written by the Lord Protector. Not with a pen, but with a bayonet.
One king, three countries, zero consent
It's generally accepted that the Union of 1707 united two friendly nations that had long lived under a common crown. It's a convenient formula, and it explains almost nothing.
In 1603, the childless Elizabeth I died, and the English throne passed to her distant relative, the Scottish King James VI. He became James I of England. Thus arose what historians call the "union of the crowns": a single monarch over England, Scotland, and Ireland. James himself readily called himself "King of Great Britain" and attempted to transform the dynastic union into a real state. The parliaments of England and Scotland rejected this idea.
The reason is simple. There was no unity in anything except the figure of the monarch. England professed Anglicanism with bishops and a lavish liturgy. Scotland was Presbyterian, where church authority belonged to the congregation, not the bishop. Ireland remained predominantly Catholic, under the rule of a Protestant king and predominantly Protestant settlers. Three legal systems, three parliaments, and three warring churches under one crown.
James's son, Charles I, inherited the throne and the idea that the king was accountable to God, not his subjects. From 1629, he ruled without Parliament for eleven years, squeezing money out of old feudal rights. In 1637, he attempted to introduce an English-style prayer book in Scotland. Scotland responded with the National Covenant of 1638 and weapons – The Bishops' Wars of 1639–1640. The king lost the war and was forced to convene Parliament in London to raise funds to pay the indemnities to the victors. In 1641, a rebellion by Catholic nobles broke out in Ireland. The question of who would command the army to suppress it, the king or Parliament, became the final spark. By 1642, it became clear that one king was not enough for three very different kingdoms.
"Charles I and Prince Rupert before the Battle of Naseby" by battle artist Ernest Crofts
The scaffold on Whitehall
In August 1642, Charles raised his standard in Nottingham. This began what school textbooks call the English Civil War, and in modern historiography, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The name is more accurate: all three kingdoms fought, in various combinations, and the fronts intertwined.
The Royalists, the "Cavaliers," relied on the provincial aristocracy. The Parliamentarians, the "Roundheads" (due to their short hair), relied on the cities, Puritan communities, and the London militia. The decisive factor was the invention of a new model army: disciplined, trained, and regularly paid troops under a single command, where commanders rose by merit, and pedigree played almost no role in selection. Oliver Cromwell, a member of Parliament for Cambridge and a descendant of the small landed gentry, rose to prominence within its ranks. By the time of the reform, he was already one of the finest cavalry commanders in the Parliamentary army. Initially, his cavalrymen were nicknamed "Ironsides" for their training and fortitude under fire; over time, the nickname was adopted by the commander himself.
The Battle of Naseby, fought on June 14, 1645, marked a turning point in the English Civil War. Artist Charles Landseer depicted Oliver Cromwell on a white horse at the center of the scene, surrounded by soldiers.
At Naseby in 1645, Fairfax's army, in which Cromwell commanded the cavalry, routed the royal forces. In 1646, Charles surrendered to the Scots, counting on the leniency of his fellow believers. The Scots, for money, handed him over to the English Parliament. The king attempted to outmaneuver the victors by creating discord among them: he secretly signed an "Engagement" with the Scots in exchange for religious concessions. Historians still debate whether this was an act of desperation or part of a deliberate strategy; for Charles himself, story ended in the catastrophe of the Second Civil War in 1648.
In December 1648, the army carried out the Pride Purge, forcibly removing from parliament those deputies who still wanted to negotiate with the king. The remaining members, dubbed the "Rump Parliament," established a High Court of Justice. Charles was found guilty of treason against his own people. The very formula of the charge—"treason against his own people"—was unprecedented in Europe.
On January 30, 1649, Charles I was led to the scaffold in front of the Banqueting House on Whitehall. The executioner's axe severed his head from his body. The death warrant bore the signatures of 59 judge-commissioners, one of whom was Oliver Cromwell. In March 1649, Parliament abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords. Sovereign power, Parliament declared, henceforth belonged to "the people represented in Parliament." For the first time in history, England was left without a king. To everyone's surprise, the state did not collapse: taxes were collected, the army fought, fleet held the English Channel.
The execution of Charles I, King of England, which took place on January 30, 1649, in London, in front of Whitehall Palace. The painting was long attributed to the artist John Wysop, but is now considered the work of an unknown Dutch artist.
Cromwell gathers Britain at bayonet point
Between 1649 and 1657, three revolutions occurred simultaneously in London. The first, the abolition of the monarchy, is remembered. The other two are almost unknown. Yet they explain the origins of Great Britain.
The first was constitutional. In December 1653, the "Instrument of Government," drafted by General John Lambert, came into force. It was the first written constitution in English history: not just another charter of privileges, but a codified document outlining the structure of government. Power was divided between the Lord Protector, Parliament, and the Council of State. Parliament was to be convened at least once every three years and sit for at least five months. The formula for supreme power was: "one man and the people in Parliament assembled."
The second revolution was administrative. Following conspiracies and the attempted Penruddock rebellion of 1655, Cromwell divided England and Wales into ten military districts. Each was governed by a major-general responsible for order, taxes, militia, and "morals." Public houses were closed, gambling was prosecuted, and Sunday entertainment was banned. This was an attempt to build a God-fearing society by decree. It lasted two years and ended with the English developing a fierce hatred for the military in the provinces. However, it clearly demonstrated that the country could be governed centrally, bypassing local elites.
And the third revolution is territorial.
Oliver Cromwell at the Storming of Basing House by Ernest Crofts
In 1649, Cromwell landed in Ireland. The sieges of Drogheda and Wexford were accompanied by massacres of garrisons and townspeople. The exact casualty figures are still a matter of debate: Irish revisionist historian Tom Reilly, in a 2009 book, insists that around two thousand people, mostly garrison soldiers, perished at Drogheda; traditional journalistic estimates from the 19th and 20th centuries hold to the upper limit of three to four thousand, including a significant portion of the civilian population. Cromwell's name has remained etched in Irish memory to this day—and for good reason. The campaign resulted in massive land confiscations for the benefit of army veterans and parliamentary creditors. In 1650, the Scottish army was routed at Dunbar. By 1652, all of Scotland lay under English garrisons, and its parliament was abolished.
"Cromwell after the Battle of Marston Moor" by Ernest Crofts
In April 1653, Cromwell entered the parliament with a detachment of soldiers and dissolved the "Rump Parliament." The Tender of Union with Scotland had already been passed in 1652, and on April 12, 1654, Cromwell issued the Ordinance of Union for England and Scotland.
The Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland (the official name of the republic proclaimed in 1649) had a single parliament in Westminster. Under the Ordinance, Scotland received 30 seats at Westminster, and Ireland also 30. Internal customs between the three countries were abolished. A unified tax system was introduced. Goods moved freely. If you remove Cromwell's name from this description and substitute the date "1707," no reader would notice the substitution.
This is a painting by the English historical artist Andrew Carrick Gow, depicting the dissolution of the Long Parliament by Oliver Cromwell in 1653.
The union was held together by bayonets, and this was its weak point. But as an administrative structure, it worked. For six years—from 1654 to 1660—the country was governed as a single state for the first time.
In 1657, Parliament offered Cromwell the "Humble Petition and Advice": a bicameral parliament, expanded powers, and a crown. Cromwell refused the crown, but accepted almost everything else and was re-inaugurated as Lord Protector. He died on September 3, 1658. His son Richard inherited a regime that did not outlive its creator.
Restoration and its limits
Richard Cromwell was neither a soldier nor a politician. The army removed him within six months. By the spring of 1659, the country was once again left without a coherent structure. The solution was secured by one man – General George Monck, who commanded the English forces in Scotland. Biographers disagree on whether he acted as a secret monarchist from the outset or made his decision only as he marched. In any case, in February 1660, he led an army from Edinburgh to London, convened the Convention Parliament, and began negotiations with the exiled court.
In April 1660, Charles II, the son of the executed king, signed a declaration in Breda. It promised a general amnesty for most participants in the revolution, reasonable religious tolerance, recognition of existing land relations, and the payment of army debts. He left the specifics to Parliament. The king was returning to negotiate, not to settle scores, and in London, almost everyone except the most stubborn republicans understood this.
In May 1660, Charles II entered London. The monarchy and the House of Lords were restored. The Church of England regained its status as a state. But the Union did not. The Scottish Parliament was revived, as was the Irish one, and the common customs territory disappeared. Legally, Cromwell's Britain ceased to exist. But as a model administrative structure, it was already enshrined in the state's memory.
In January 1661, Oliver Cromwell's body, buried in Westminster Abbey for two and a half years, was exhumed, taken to Tyburn, and hung on a gallows. His head was then severed and his skull mounted on a stake. The message was clear: the republican past had been abolished, as if it had never existed. But by this point, the past had already been written—in laws, in practice, in the memories of administrators.
Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), an English statesman and military leader who played a key role in the English Civil War. Cromwell's severed head was mounted on a pike above Westminster Hall, where it remained for over 20 years before disappearing and becoming a private heirloom.
1707: reprint
In 1688, Parliament deposed James II and invited William of Orange to the throne. In 1689, the Bill of Rights enshrined Parliament's supremacy over laws and taxes. In 1701, the Act of Settlement excluded Catholics from the line of succession. In 1707, Scotland and England united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Each of these documents addresses a problem first posed in the 1640s. Parliament over the Crown is a response to the absolutism of Charles I. Protestant succession to the throne is a response to the confessional wars of the three kingdoms. A unified state with a common parliament, uniform taxes, and free movement of goods is a literal reproduction of the Ordinance of 1654.
But there is a crucial difference. Cromwell's Union was a unilateral act: Scotland and Ireland received it along with their English garrisons and without the right to refuse. The Union of 1707 was the result of years of negotiations. Scotland lost its parliament, but retained its own law, its own Presbyterian church, and its own educational system—three institutions that remain fundamental to Scottish identity. Cromwell took everything from the Scots, while Anne took only parliament. The Union of 1707 survived the difficult first decades because the church, law, and schools remained intact.
The Act of Union 1707 is a historic document that united the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland into a single state called the Kingdom of Great Britain.
The Union of 1707 wasn't conceived in Queen Anne's chambers. Its draft had long lain in the archives, bearing the signature of Cromwell, whose name was brought to dishonor in 1660 and whose body was executed posthumously. But the document itself remained. The usual parliamentary business followed: amendments, haggling over clauses, votes in Edinburgh and Westminster.
This continuity has long been traced by historians of the "new British history" school: J. Morrill, J. Pocock, D. Stevenson, and J. Young. Here, it is merely brought back from academic monographs to the reader.
Queen Anne's signature was placed on the paper whose draft had been sketched out by the Lord Protector half a century earlier.
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