THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND
203. In the last chapter we reviewed the progress of affairs in eastern Europe and noted the appearance of two new and important powers, Prussia and Russia, which, together with Austria, were engaged during the eighteenth century in extending their bounds at the expense of their weak neighbors, Poland and Turkey.
In the eighteenth century England lays the foundation of her commercial greatness.
In the west, England was rapidly becoming a dominant power. While she did not play a very important part in the wars on the continent, she was making herself mistress of the seas. At the close of the War of the Spanish Succession her navy was superior to that of any other European power, for both France and Holland had been greatly weakened by the long conflict. Fifty years after the Treaty of Utrecht, England had succeeded in driving the French from both North America and India and in laying the foundation of her vast colonial empire, which still gives her the commercial supremacy among the European countries.
Questions settled by the accession of William and Mary.
With the accession of William and Mary, England may be regarded as having practically settled the two great questions which had produced such serious dissensions during the previous fifty years. In the first place, the nation had clearly shown that it proposed to remain Protestant; and the relations between the Church of England and the dissenters were gradually being satisfactorily adjusted. In the second place, the powers of the king had been carefully defined, and from the opening of the eighteenth century to the present time no English monarch has ventured to veto an act of Parliament.[363]
Queen Anne, 1702–1714.
The union of England and Scotland, 1707.
William III was succeeded in 1702 by his sister-in-law, Anne, a younger daughter of James II. Far more important than the war which her generals carried on against Spain was the final union of England and Scotland. As we have seen, the difficulties between the two countries had led to much bloodshed and suffering ever since Edward I's futile attempt to conquer Scotland.[364] The two countries had, it is true, been under the same ruler since the accession of James I, but each had maintained its own independent parliament and system of government. Finally, in 1707, both nations agreed to unite their governments into one. Forty-five members of the British House of Commons were to be chosen thereafter in Scotland, and sixteen Scotch lords were to be added to the British House of Lords. In this way the whole island of Great Britain was placed under a single government, and the occasions for strife were thereby greatly reduced.
Accession of George I (1714–1727), the first of the house of Hanover.