As you can see from the above tweet (click to enlarge), Liberation Scotland – the people trying to have Scotland recognised by the UN as a ‘non self governing territory’ (see here) – are very excited by the discovery of what they believe is evidence of their theory that the Treaty of Union was never implemented and instead what happened was that England simply annexed and occupied Scotland with the consequence that the United Kingdom is really the pre-1707 Kingdom of England thinly disguised under a new name and with Scotland as a ‘non self governing territory’ (colony) of it.
The evidence in question is an Act of Parliament passed in 1772 (see it here (Chapter XXI)) which refers to ‘the Crown of England, or of Great Britain’. Liberation Scotland assume this to be alternative names for the same thing but alas they’ve made an elementary mistake: they didn’t bother to actually read the Act.
If they had, they'd have discovered that the references in it to ‘the Crown of England, or of Great Britain’ are actually references to two separate things: ‘the Crown of England before 1707, or, after that, the Crown of Great Britain’ in other words. [EDIT see Postscript below]
The context which reveals this is that the Act is naturalising as subjects of the Crown of Great Britain certain people who would not otherwise be entitled to that status but whose fathers had in the past been treated either as subjects of the Crown of England before 1707 or as subjects of the Crown of Great Britain after 1707 (or both). Note that the operative words of the Act – those which regulate what is to happen in 1772 (the year the Act was passed) and afterwards as opposed to narrating the historical background and are on lines 22-24 of page 20 of the volume linked to above – are that the people concerned
“are hereby declared and enacted to be, natural-born subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, to all intents constructions and purposes whatsoever, as if he and they had been and were born in this kingdom …”
No mention of the Crown of England in that present (1772) and future context. [EDIT see Postscript below]
So once you read the Act to put the references in it to the Crown of England in context, you discover they are, in fact, entirely consistent with that Crown having ceased to exist in 1707 and replaced by the Crown of Great Britain, all as provided for in the Articles and Acts of Union.
This isn’t the first time people on this wing of the Scottish independence movement have made chumps of themselves by not actually reading the legislation they pontificate about. I’m referring to those who believe that the Acts of Union ratify the Claim of Right simply because the word ‘ratifies’ appears in the AoU in a context which also mentions the CoR. But if you actually read the AoU, you find it’s not the CoR that’s being ratified but something else as discussed here. And X (Twitter) user @SeannachaidhS who drew Liberation Scotland’s attention to the 1772 Naturalisation Act discussed above thought he’d found another example of the Crown of England being referred to as if it still existed in an Act of 1800 (I can’t link to the tweet because he’s blocked me). But if he’d actually read that Act (begins here, Chapter LXXXVIII, reference to Crown of England on next page, screenshot below) he’d have found the reference was in a narration of the terms of another earlier Act passed in 1702-03 when, of course, the Crown of England still existed.
Because it often consists of such massive long sentences,18th and early 19th century legislation is not an easy read. But it’s not impossible. And if you’re going to make controversial pronouncements on it so emphatically, I think it kind of behoves you to try.
Postscript: As a result of a thread I had on X with Seannachaidh (here), I have to accept that reading the Act does not reveal that “crown of England, or of Great Britain” means “crown of England before 1707, or, after 1707, crown of Great Britain”, only that it could mean that. But equally, Liberation Scotland Committee can’t definitely claim it means “crown of England, or of Great Britain as the crown of England is also known”, only that it could mean that.
Also, on reflection, I don’t think anything turns on the reference being only to Great Britain in the operative words of the Act: even if the crown of GB is just the crown of England with a new name since 1707, it might be logical to use both names in contexts spanning the change but only the current name in the present (as you might refer to Jane White née Black as Jane Black or Jane White when referring to her in contexts spanning her marriage to Mr White but only refer to her as Jane White in present day contexts).
Below in italic is Seannachaidh’s opening post in the thread into which I’ve interlined my comments (to which he's very welcome to comment back):-
Hi Neil.
If your interpretation of the act posted below is correct - that “Crown of England, or of Great Britain” merely means before and after 1707 - then hasn’t the Act, and you, forgotten something rather crucial?
Scotland?
Scotland also had a crown and subjects owing allegiance prior to 1707.
An Act dealing merely with a temporal switch would have to deal equally with Scotland’s Crown, just as with England’s.
So why does the Act include only “Crown of England” in legislation applying to Scotland?
If that is its meaning, then it fails to capture the full legal position and leaves a clear gap in its own logic.
Are we to believe the drafters were incompetent and simply overlooked Scotland’s Crown - or that the phrase is doing more than a simple temporal transition?
That asymmetry matters.
If the phrase merely marked a before/after transition, it would be applied consistently to both pre-Union crowns. The fact that it isn’t - that only “Crown of England” is paired with “Great Britain” in a GB-wide Act - shows the phrase is doing more than a simple temporal switch. Your reading doesn’t account for that.
Comment: The answer to the above is that the 'same crown with an alternative name post 1707' reading of the phrase preferred by Seannachaidh/LSC doesn’t remove the discrimination against the grandchildren born abroad of natural born Scottish subjects who died before 1707 and thus didn’t live to become subjects of Great Britain. To put that another way, reading the phrase that way doesn’t result in the wording of the 1772 Act naturalising these grandchildren. (Incidentally I don’t know why the Act discriminates (on either reading) against the descendants of Scots who died before 1707 but I suspect cock up rather than conspiracy: I’m perfectly prepared to believe the drafters might have been “incompetent and simply overlooked Scotland’s Crown”.
And that’s not the only problem with reading it as a simple before/after transition.
First, the Act uses “or”, which denotes alternatives. Temporal transitions are not expressed as “A or B”, but with clear markers such as “before and after”, “formerly”, or “now”. None of that appears here.
Comment: I think ‘temporal transitions’ can be separated by ‘or’ as in “If you were born in 1970 or 1971 …”. Anyway, the Act is dealing with alternatives: “if you were a subject of the Crown of England or, alternatively, if you lived past 1707, of the crown of Great Britain”.
Beyond that, I think the suggestion’s being made here that, if the drafters of the Act had intended the two different things pre- and post-1707 reading, wouldn’t they have said so more explicitly? But doesn’t that cut both ways? – if they’d meant the same thing with a new name after 1707, wouldn’t they have made that clearer too? (As it happens, it doesn’t matter that they didn’t make their meaning clearer because the result is the same either way.)
Second, the phrase “Crown of England, or of Great Britain” is repeated throughout the Act - consistently and in a formulaic way - no fewer than six times, across the title, eligibility clauses, operative provisions, and provisos. That is not how a one-off historical clarification is ordinarily expressed.
Comment: I’m not sure the number of times a phrase is used is relevant to its interpretation except, perhaps, to suggest it’s not a result of a clerical error. The one-off event needs to be referred to several times.
Third, the phrase is not confined to background narration - it is used in defining who qualifies as a subject. That means “Crown of England” is still doing legal work within the Act (while Scotland’s is completely omitted), not simply referring to a past condition.
Comment: Yes, it’s doing legal work but that work is the consequences of events which need to be defined: they were in the past (‘past conditions’, if you like), potentially as long ago as when the Crown of England still existed or, if you prefer, only had one name (the ligeance of people’s grandfathers who may have died before 1707).
Fourth, there are no temporal markers at all. The Act never says “before 1707” or “after 1707”, nor does it signal any transition explicitly. That timeline is being inserted, not read from the text. In other words, the distinction you rely on is not in the Act itself, but supplied by your preferred reading of it.
Comment: See last but one comment.
Even on your own explanation, the Act still does not read as a simple before-and-after distinction. It does not explain why the phrase is repeatedly expressed as “Crown of England, or of Great Britain”, rather than in clear temporal terms, nor why that supposed transition is applied to England alone and not to Scotland.
Comment: Already dealt with repetition, ‘temporal terms’ and the Scotland dimension. As regards the last, I’m not defending the wisdom or fairness of the Act – it’s clearly discriminatory – only what it says.
You’re on firmer footing with the 1800 Act you referenced, which at least initially uses the phrase within a clearly marked temporal frame - “Whereas… in the year…” - a feature that, by stark contrast, is absent from this Act.
Comment: Glad we agree on something!
On its own terms, your interpretation fails at every point:
- It is not stated anywhere in the Act; the supposed “before and after 1707” rule is entirely read in, not written.
Comment: Agreed. But it is entirely legitimate to read in unspoken words.
- It is contradicted by the wording used; “or” denotes alternatives, not chronology.
Comment: We are dealing with alternatives: (1) subjects of the crown of England who died before 1707 and thus didn’t live to become subjects of the crown of GB; and (2) people who lived through and after 1707 and were thus subjects of the crown of GB.
- It ignores the structure of the Act; the phrase is used repeatedly - no fewer than six times - across operative provisions, not once as a historical note.
Comment: Already dealt with the repetition.
- It mischaracterises function; “Crown of England” is used to define legal status, not merely to narrate past conditions.
Comment: Agreed that “Crown of England” defines legal status and if I suggested otherwise, I didn’t intend to.
- It produces an unexplained asymmetry; if it were a universal temporal switch, it would apply to Scotland as well, yet Scotland’s Crown is entirely absent.
Comment: Already dealt with the Scottish dimension.
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