The British Union

            "I am the husband, and the whole isle is my lawful wife; I am the head and it is my body; I am the shepherd and it is my flock: I hope therefore that no man will be so unreasonable as to think that I, that am a Christian King under the Gospel, should be a polygamist and husband to two wives; that I, being the head, should have a divided and monstrous body; or that being the shepherd to so fair a flock . should have my flock parted in two." .
             This quote from James VI and I shows his desire for there to be a Union, and much of his reign was spent trying to promote a union being formed. However, how did the different nations of "Britain" feel about a union, and did the attitudes that the individual nations had change? The multiple kingdoms of "Britain" were very different to each other. Legal systems, political traditions, the instruments of government and the social structures of England, Scotland and Ireland and the principality of Wales were not only different from each other but had widely ranging regional differences. The issue of religion was also highly contentious, and unifying a country which had at least three different cultures, 2 contrasting forms of Protestantism and a second religion and 7 different languages would be difficult to say the least.
             Attempts to create the union of a single community under a single monarch were first properly started by James VI and I. The word union has many different meanings and they can vary largely. An Incorporative union could be exemplified by looking at the union that the Tudors applied to Wales. It was really just enlarging England; an Incorporative union could be seen as one country taking, usually a smaller country, into its body. In a Federal union, each kingdom retained characteristic institutions but tried to co-ordinate them; they tried to get them to work in harmony. There was mutual and reciprocal communication. As far as foreign policy was concerned, for example in the case of war, there would be no war if only one country benefited but another country in the union didn't.