Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When did Scotland become part of the Commonwealth?
In 1652, the English parliament declared that Scotland was part of the Commonwealth. Various attempts were made to legitimise the union, calling representatives from the Scottish burghs and shires to negotiations and to various English parliaments, where they were always under-represented and had little opportunity for dissent. However, final ratification was delayed by Cromwell's problems with his various parliaments and the union did not become the subject of an act until 1657. The military administration in Scotland, led by General George Monck, was relatively successful. It managed to enforce law and order, suppressing the banditry of the Moss-troopers and enforcing a form of limited religious toleration, but by introducing English judges largely suspending the Scots law. In 1653–55 there was a major Royalist rising in the Highlands led by William Cunningham, 9th Earl of Glencairn and John Middleton, which was defeated at the Battle of Dalnaspidal on 19 July 1654.
The Commonwealth of Nations—formerly the British Commonwealth—is a voluntary association or confederation of 53 independent sovereign states, most of which were once part of the British Empire. The Commonwealth's membership includes both republics and monarchies. The Head of the Commonwealth is Queen Elizabeth II, who also reigns as monarch directly in the 16 member states known as Commonwealth realms.
Between c. 1150 and c. 1400, most of the Scottish Lowlands became English culturally and linguistically through immigration from England, France and Flanders and from the resulting assimilation of native Gaelic-speaking Scots although Lowland Gaelic was still spoken in Galloway until the 18th century. The Scots language is the resulting Germanic language still spoken in parts of Scotland and is very similar to the speech of the Northumbrians of northern England. Between the 15th and 17th centuries Scots spread into more of mainland Scotland at the expense of Scottish Gaelic although Gaelic maintained a strong hold over the Scottish Highlands, and Scots also began to make some headway into the Northern Isles. The latter, Orkney and Shetland, though now part of Scotland, were nominally part of the Kingdom of Norway until the 15th century. A version of the Norse language was spoken there from the Viking invasions until replaced by Scots in the 18th and 19th centuries.
This was ended in 1961 when South Africa left the British Commonwealth on becoming a Republic, and formally abandoned all of its connections, with Union nationals becoming citizens of the Republic of South Africa. By the time South Africa returned to the Commonwealth in 1994, the phrase "British Subject" had been replaced by "Commonwealth citizen". Australia was the last to phase out British Subject in the Citizenship law which was in 1986.
The Kingdom of Scotland was united under the House of Alpin, whose members fought among each other during frequent disputed successions. The last Alpin king, Malcolm II, died without issue in the early 11th century and the kingdom passed through his daughter's son to the House of Dunkeld or Canmore. The last Dunkeld king, Alexander III, died in 1286. He left only his infant granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway as heir, who died herself four years later. England, under Edward I, would take advantage of this questioned succession to launch a series of conquests, resulting in the Wars of Scottish Independence, as Scotland passed back and forth between the House of Balliol and the House of Bruce. Scotland's ultimate victory confirmed Scotland as a fully independent and sovereign kingdom.
Despite attempts by Edward I to conquer Scotland in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, the two countries were entirely separate. However, when Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558, a union became increasingly likely as she neither married or had children. From 1558 onwards, her heir was her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots who pledged herself to a peaceful union between the two kingdoms. In 1567, Mary was forced to abdicate as Queen of Scots and replaced by her infant son James VI and I, who was brought up as a Protestant and became heir to the English throne. After Elizabeth died in 1603, the two Crowns were held in personal union by James and his Stuart successors but England and Scotland remained separate entities.
During a period between the accession of King James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603 and the unification of Scotland and England in 1707, the two entities separate "countries" in personal union through the one monarch who was advised by two separate sets of Ministers of the Crown for each country. As the English overseas possessions and later British Empire expanded, the colonial governments remained subordinate to the imperial government at Westminster, and thus the Crown was still ministered to only by the Imperial Privy Council, made up of British Ministers of the Crown. When Canada became a Dominion in 1867, however, a separate Canadian Privy Council was established to advise the Canadian Governor General on the exercise of the Crown prerogative in Canada, although constitutionally the viceroy remained an agent of the British government at Whitehall.
Many of the countries from which the immigrants had come, became independent of the UK after 1948 and people living there became citizens of those countries. Legislative measures in the 60s and early 70s limited the rights of citizens of these former colonies, now members of the Commonwealth, to come to or work in the UK. Anyone who had arrived in the UK from a Commonwealth country before 1973 was granted an automatic right permanently to remain, unless they left the UK for more than two years. Since the right was automatic, many people in this category were never given, or asked to provide, documentary evidence of their right to remain at the time or over the next forty years, during which, many continued to live and work in the UK, believing themselves to be British.
Scottish cuisine has distinctive attributes and recipes of its own but shares much with wider British and European cuisine as a result of local and foreign influences, both ancient and modern. Traditional Scottish dishes exist alongside international foodstuffs brought about by migration. Scotland's natural larder of game, dairy products, fish, fruit, and vegetables is the chief factor in traditional Scots cooking, with a high reliance on simplicity and a lack of spices from abroad, as these were historically rare and expensive. Irn-Bru is the most common Scottish carbonated soft drink, often described as "Scotland's other national drink" (after whisky). During the Late Middle Ages and early modern era, French cuisine played a role in Scottish cookery due to cultural exchanges brought about by the "Auld Alliance", especially during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary, on her return to Scotland, brought an entourage of French staff who are considered responsible for revolutionising Scots cooking and for some of Scotland's unique food terminology.
As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. India had become a republic within the Commonwealth in 1950, but it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to its apartheid policies. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.
Commonwealth is a designation used by four of the 50 states of the United States in their full official state names: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Prior to the formation of the United States of America in 1776, all four were part of Great Britain's possessions along the Atlantic coast of North America. As such, they share a strong influence of English common law in some of their laws and institutions.
The land area of the Commonwealth nations is about , or about 21% of the total world land area. The three largest Commonwealth nations by area are Canada at , Australia at , and India at . In 2016, the Commonwealth members had a combined gross domestic product of over $9 trillion, 78% of which is accounted for by the four largest economies: United Kingdom ($2.629 trillion), India ($2.256 trillion), Canada ($1.529 trillion), and Australia ($1.258 trillion).
The Northern Isles (; ; ) are a pair of archipelagos off the north coast of mainland Scotland, comprising Orkney and Shetland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are a total of 26 inhabited islands with landscapes of the fertile agricultural islands of Orkney contrasting with the more rugged Shetland islands to the north, where the economy is more dependent on fishing and the oil wealth of the surrounding seas. Both have a developing renewable energy industry. They also share a common Pictish and Norse history. Both island groups were absorbed into the Kingdom of Scotland in the 15th century and remained part of the country following the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, and later the United Kingdom after 1801. The islands played a significant naval role during the world wars of the 20th century.
John Willock, who had been exiled to Emden, and John Knox, who had spent five years exiled in Geneva, were the most influential figures of the Scottish Reformation. Knox preached to Scottish noblemen from 1555–56, though he did not encourage the establishment of independent churches as was done in France. In 1557 a group of noblemen known as the Lords of the Congregation swore an oath, following a Scottish custom, to promote Protestant reforms in churches. Knox and Willock encouraged radical militant action even on the part of independent laypeople in areas where Catholic practices were re-instituted. In 1560 the Scottish Parliament adopted the broadly Reformed Scots Confession and instituted the Church of Scotland along Reformed lines, though bishops were retained within a presbyterial system. Despite the success of the Reformed in Scotland many people retained Catholic practices such as holy days and pilgrimages and the majority of parishes did not have qualified Reformed ministers by the end of the century.
The politics of the Highland council area in Scotland are evident in the deliberations and decisions of the Highland Council, in elections to the council, and in elections to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster) and the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood). In the European Parliament the area is within the Scotland constituency, which covers all of the 32 council areas of Scotland.
By 1928 Scotland had 1,298 different local authorities, many of them overlapping. In November the Scottish Office issued a bill to reform local government: this sought to abolish 1,064 of the various bodies, leaving only 33 county councils and 201 burgh councils. Burghs (other than the counties of cities) were to be divided into two classes: large burghs and small burghs. Large burghs were to gain considerable powers from the county councils. Small burghs, conversely, were to cede most of their duties to the county councils.
and many other generally English-speaking countries or Commonwealth countries (except the UK's Scotland, which is bijuridicial, and Malta). Essentially, every country that was colonised at some time by England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom uses common law except those that were formerly colonised by other nations, such as Quebec (which follows the law of France in part), South Africa and Sri Lanka (which follow Roman Dutch law), where the prior civil law system was retained to respect the civil rights of the local colonists. Guyana and Saint Lucia have mixed Common Law and Civil Law systems.
The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( "") was a condominium of the United Kingdom and Egypt in the eastern Sudan region of northern Africa between 1899 and 1956, but in practice the structure of the condominium ensured full British control over the Sudan with Egypt having local influence instead. It attained independence as the Republic of the Sudan, which since 2011 has been split into Sudan and South Sudan.
However, the Commonwealth by 1960 included new Asian and African members, whose rulers saw the apartheid state's membership as an affront to the organisation's new democratic principles. Julius Nyerere, then Chief Minister of Tanganyika, indicated that his country, which was due to gain independence in 1961, would not join the Commonwealth were apartheid South Africa to remain a member. A Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was convened in March 1961, a year ahead of schedule, to address the issue. In response, Verwoerd stirred up a confrontation, causing many members to threaten to withdraw if South Africa's renewal of membership application was accepted. As a result, South Africa's membership application was withdrawn, meaning that upon its becoming a republic, the country's Commonwealth membership simply lapsed.
The history of the British Raj refers to the period of British rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India). It lasted until 1947, when the British provinces of India were partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the "Dominion of India" and the "Dominion of Pakistan", leaving the princely states to choose between them. The two new dominions later became the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (the eastern half of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). The province of Burma in the eastern region of the Indian Empire had been made a separate colony in 1937 and became independent in 1948.
The Commonwealth Secretariat, established in 1965, is the main intergovernmental agency of the Commonwealth, facilitating consultation and co-operation among member governments and countries. It is responsible to member governments collectively. The Commonwealth of Nations is represented in the United Nations General Assembly by the secretariat as an observer. The secretariat organises Commonwealth summits, meetings of ministers, consultative meetings and technical discussions; it assists policy development and provides policy advice, and facilitates multilateral communication among the member governments. It also provides technical assistance to help governments in the social and economic development of their countries and in support of the Commonwealth's fundamental political values.
The Commonwealth was the period from 1649 to 1660 when England and Wales, later along with Ireland and Scotland, were ruled as a republic following the end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I. The republic's existence was declared through "An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth", adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. Power in the early Commonwealth was vested primarily in the Parliament and a Council of State. During the period, fighting continued, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, between the parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, as part of what is now referred to as the Third English Civil War.
Scotland joined the Commonwealth of Nations as part of the United Kingdom in 1931.
Toleration did not extend to Episcopalians and Catholics, but if they did not call attention to themselves they were largely left alone. It did extend to sectaries, but the only independent group to establish itself in Scotland in this period were a small number of Quakers. In general the period of the Commonwealth was looked back on as one where Protestantism flourished. Ministers, now largely barred from politics, spent more time with their flocks and placed an emphasis on preaching that emulated the sectaries. One Presbyterian noted that "there were more souls converted to Christ in that short period of time than in any season since the Reformation".
On 12 April 1654, the "Ordinance for uniting Scotland into one Commonwealth with England" issued by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and proclaimed in Scotland by the military governor of Scotland, General George Monck. The Ordinance did not become an Act of Union until it was approved by the Second Protectorate Parliament on 26 June 1657 in an act that enabled several bills.