ABSTRACT
Scotland was a proud and separate nation long before it became part of the United Kingdom with England in 1603 and long before it became part of the unitary state of Great Britain following the Acts of Union in 1707. It had not been conquered by the Romans or the Normans and had never been subjugated by the English, at any rate north of the Scottish Lowlands. Admittedly, Scotland had frequently had to fight and scheme to preserve its often tenuous independence, invariably with the aid of the ‘auld alliance’ with France which dated back to 1295 and common Franco-Scottish resistance to the formidable English military power of Edward I.
