Union of the Crowns create a new "imperial" throne of "Great Britain". England and Scotland continued as autonomous states sharing a monarch with Ireland (with an interregnum in the 1650s during the republican unitary state of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate), until the Acts of Union of 1707 during the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Anne. In August 1503, James IV of Scotland married Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, and the spirit of the new age was celebrated by the poet William Dunbar in "The Thrissil and the Rois". The marriage was the outcome of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace,
Acts of Union 1707 30 representatives each from Scotland and Ireland added to the existing English members. While it established free trade within the Commonwealth, the economic benefits were diminished by the heavy taxation needed to fund the army. In Scotland, Union was associated with military occupation, in England with heavy taxes and had little popular support in either country. It was dissolved by the 1660 Restoration of Charles II despite a petition by Scottish members of the Commonwealth Parliament for its continuance. The Scottish economy was badly damaged by the English Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663 and wars with the Dutch Republic,