who was the british monarch when canada became a country
List of Canadian monarchs Listed here are the monarchs who reigned over the French and British colonies of Canada, followed by the British Dominion of Canada, and finally the present-day sovereign state of Canada.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] The date of the first claim by a monarch over Canada varies, with most sources giving the year as 1497, when John Cabot made landfall somewhere on the North American coast (likely either modern-day Newfoundland or Nova Scotia), and claimed the land for England on behalf of King Henry VII.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] However, some sources instead put this date at 1534 when the word "Canada" was first used to refer to the French colony of Canada,[19] which was founded in the name of King Francis I.[20][21] Monarchical governance subsequently evolved under a continuous succession of French, British, and eventually uniquely Canadian sovereigns.[4][5][17][21][22][23][24][25] Since the first claim by Henry VII,[26] there have been 33 sovereigns of Canada, including two sets of co-sovereigns.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33]
James VI and I James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, positioning him to eventually accede to all three thrones. James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. In 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known after him as the Jacobean era, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England (the largest of the three realms) from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617, and styled himself "King of Great Britain and Ireland". He was a major advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonisation of the Americas began.
History of Canada With the end of the Seven Years' War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763), France ceded almost all of its remaining territory in mainland North America, except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon where its fishermen could dry their fish. France had already secretly ceded its vast Louisiana territory to Spain under the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) in which King Louis XV of France had given his cousin King Charles III of Spain the entire area of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. France and Spain kept the Treaty of Fontainebleau secret from other countries until 1764.[97] In return for acquiring Canada, Britain returned to France its most important sugar-producing colony, Guadeloupe, which the French at the time considered more valuable than Canada. (Guadeloupe produced more sugar than all the British islands combined, and Voltaire had notoriously dismissed Canada as "Quelques arpents de neige", "A few acres of snow").[98]
Monarchy of Canada In a poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid following the first prorogation of the 40th parliament on 4 December 2008, it was found that 42% of the sample group thought the prime minister was head of state, while 33% felt it was the governor general. Only 24% named the Queen as head of state,[140] a number up from 2002, when the results of an EKOS Research Associates survey showed only 5% of those polled knew the Queen was head of state (69% answered that it was the prime minister).[161]