The Royal Bank of Scotland £1 note those holding genuine Bank of England notes. In 1727, the Royal Bank of Scotland began issuing twenty-shilling notes (equivalent to £1). Early banknotes were monochrome, and printed on one side only. The first twenty-shilling notes were dated 8 December 1727 and were hand-signed by a bank cashier and given a unique number. The cashier also added by hand the equivalent value in old Scots pounds — a currency that had been abolished 20 years earlier in the Acts of Union 1707 which united the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Twenty shillings was equivalent to
Acts of Union 1707 justices of the peace in each shire to carry out administration. In effect it took the day-to-day government of Scotland out of the hands of politicians and into those of the College of Justice. In the year following the Union, the Treason Act 1708 abolished the Scottish law of and extended the corresponding English law across Great Britain. Scotland benefited, says historian G.N. Clark, gaining "freedom of trade with England and the colonies" as well as "a great expansion of markets". The agreement guaranteed the permanent status of the Presbyterian church in Scotland, and the separate system of laws and