Scotland an English invasion, played a leading role in convincing the Scots elite to back a union with England. On 22 July 1706, the Treaty of Union was agreed between representatives of the Scots Parliament and the Parliament of England. The following year twin Acts of Union were passed by both parliaments to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain with effect from 1 May 1707 with popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere. With trade tariffs with England now abolished, trade blossomed, especially with Colonial America. The clippers belonging to the Glasgow Tobacco Lords were the fastest
Acts of Union 1707 not mean James abandoned the idea; 17th-century religion and politics were closely linked and he viewed a unified Church of Scotland and England as the first step towards a centralised, Unionist state. The problem was that the two churches were very different in both structure and doctrine; Scottish bishops presided over Presbyterian structures but were doctrinal Calvinists who viewed many Church of England practices as little better than Catholicism. The religious policies followed by James and his son Charles I were intended as precursors to political union; resistance to this concept led to the 1638 National Covenant in Scotland and