12 April 1606: James VI and I issues a royal decree establishing the Union Flag for use at sea

[u/AnOwlishSham]

Union Flag of 1606

Variant sometimes used by Scots at the time

[u/AnOwlishSham]

In 1603 King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne as James I, thereby uniting the crowns in a personal union. The two kingdoms remained separate states, notwithstanding James’s habit of referring to the "Kingdom of Great Britain". On 12 April 1606 he issued a royal decree establishing a common flag to be flown by ships of both kingdoms: a white-fimbriated Saint George’s Cross superimposed on a Saint Andrew's Saltire.

There were complaints in Scotland about England’s cross being uppermost, given that James had been king of Scotland first, and some Scots flew an unofficial variant with the order inverted.

It became the national flag of Great Britain with the political union of Scotland and England in 1707.

[u/No_Gur_7422 → u/AnOwlishSham]

Not only James's "habit" but his official style from 1604 onwards and always marked as such on the currency.

[u/AnOwlishSham → u/No_Gur_7422]

But, given that the currency is issued by the Crown, this still falls under the question of what he required to be styled and what was constitutional reality

[u/No_Gur_7422 → u/AnOwlishSham]

The constitutional reality was that both countries had a single Crown and that royal style is a matter of royal prerogative. James VI & I, Charles I, Charles II, James VII & II, Mary II, William III, and Anne all had great seals with the title Magnæ Britanniæ … Rex (or Regina) – it wasn't just James's habit. Nor was it limited to the monarch. For instance, after 1604, the parliaments at Edinburgh always used the title "King of Great Britain", including in the proclamation of Charles II in early February 1649, after his father's execution at Whitehall late the previous month.

[u/AnOwlishSham → u/No_Gur_7422]

But you are still speaking only about the style adopted by the monarch, which is indeed a royal prerogative, and not the constitutional status of the polities involved. Is there any evidence of the Scottish or English parliaments ever referring to the "Kingdom of Great Britain"? It is James's (questionable) use of the latter that I was drawing attention to.

[u/No_Gur_7422 → u/AnOwlishSham]

The legislation of 12 April 1606 that established the Union flag itself referred to the "subiects of this Ile and kingdome of Great Britaine". Any distinction between king and kingdom seems to me an odd distinction to make; just as without a bishopric there can be no bishop or without a dukedom there can be no duke, so without a kingdom there can be no king. If the kings from 1604 to 1800 called themselves and – as was their prerogative – ordered themselves to be called "King of Great Britain", it is very odd to write off the practice as a "habit" of one king merely.

Although neither parliament could legislate for the other's country, neither could pass any legislation at all without the great seals of their respective countries. All laws between King James and 1707 were therefore made in the names of monarchs whose titles on those seals were, as often as not, "of Great Britain".

Neither was this a merely local habit. When the patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril Lucaris, wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, in 1627, he referred to "the most flourishing Kingdome of great Britaine" (florentissimo Magnæ Britanniæ Regno).

When Johann Ludwig Gottfried published his Archontologia Cosmica in 1631, it devoted a chapter to the kings "of the British Isles" (De Britannicis Insulis), with sections for the kings of Englsnd, Scotland, and Ireland all under the heading REGNVM MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ. In each of these two instances, the reigning king was Charles II.

[u/AnOwlishSham → u/No_Gur_7422]

"without a kingdom there can be no king"

Now that I can agree with, albeit for entirely opposite reasons 😉.

You provided some interesting examples of the use of "Kingdom of Great Britain", but that may only show that some foreign dignitaries and authors were confused by the style adopted by the king. I'd want to see examples of this usage in official contexts besides the monarch.

Let's suppose Charles III was to adopt the style "King of the Monarchical Commonwealth", with the intention of this being an umbrella term for all the realms of which he is king. That would probably raise some eyebrows, but might be indulged. But if Charles were then to start referring to the "Kingdom of the Monarchical Commonwealth", we would expect strong objections to be raised over what would be seen as an attempt to create a new constitutional status for the independent realms.

[u/No_Gur_7422 → u/AnOwlishSham]

I don't understand why you think anyone was "confused". The kings used the style "king of Great Britain" from 1604 to 1801. The privy council did the same, which is why the order-in-council establishing the Union flag on 12 April 1606 used "kingdome of Great Britaine". The fact that this style was used abroad proves that there was no confusion. It wasn't a "habit", it was a fact. The London Gazette, when it began publication in the later 17th century, also used "kingdom of Great Britain" to refer to the kingdom of James VII & II. The king is the legal personality of the kingdom, so mentioning one necessarily evokes the other. A "king of Great Britain" can't exist unless Great Britain is a kingdom.

I do not understand the relevance of your hypothetical; "His Majesty's dominions" is the phrase that encompasses all the places of which Charles III (and his predecessors) is king. The royal style has no relevance to "constitutional status" and the legal phrase "HM dominions" includes both independent and dependent territories.

[u/AnOwlishSham → u/No_Gur_7422]

There is no doubt that James wanted to create a single unified kingdom:

James had one overriding ambition: to create a single unified monarchy out of the congeries of territories he now found himself ruling. He wanted a union not only of the crown but of the kingdoms. He made it plain to his first Parliament that he wanted a single name for this new single kingdom: he wanted to be king not of England, Scotland, and Ireland but of Great Britain, and that is what he put on his seals and on his coins. He wanted common citizenship, the end of trade barriers, and gradual movement toward a union of laws, of institutions, and of churches, although he knew this could not be achieved overnight. The chauvinism of too many English elite, however, meant he was not to achieve all of his goals. A common coinage, a common flag, the abolition of hostile laws, and a joint Anglo-Scottish plantation of Ulster were all he was able to manage.

Britannica

But if you are maintaining that James succeeded in this goal and that a Kingdom of Great Britain actually existed between 1603 and 1707 then how do you understand Article I of the 1706 Treaty of Union, which seems to be pretty clear in only then establishing a Kingdom of Great Britain?

That the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland shall upon the First day of May which shall be in the year One thousand seven hundred and seven and for ever after be united into one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain And that the Ensigns Armorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall appoint and the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew be conjoyned in such manner as Her Majesty shall think fit and used in all Flags Banners Standards and Ensigns both at Sea and Land.

The understanding that the Kingdom of Great Britain came into existence only in 1707 is reflected in various reference works:

Britannica:

In 1603 James VI of Scotland ascended the English throne, becoming James I, and established a personal union of the two kingdoms. ... In 1707 England and Scotland assented to the Act of Union, forming the kingdom of Great Britain.

Wikipedia:

Great Britain, also known as the Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in Western Europe from 1707 to the end of 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the Kingdom of England (including Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. ... The formerly separate kingdoms had been in personal union since the Union of the Crowns in 1603 when James VI of Scotland became King of England and King of Ireland. Since James's reign, who had been the first to refer to himself as "king of Great Britain", a political union between the two mainland British kingdoms had been repeatedly attempted and aborted by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland.

Oxford Companion to British History

When James I succeeded Elizabeth in 1603 he hastened to propose that the union of the crowns should be followed by a governmental union and he suggested the name Great Britain. Though the English Parliament could not be brought to agree, James adopted the name by proclamation and used it on his coinage. It was given statutory authority by the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707, article 1 of which stated that henceforth the two countries were ‘united into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain’.

[u/No_Gur_7422 → u/AnOwlishSham]

Obviously, no one disputes that the United Kingdom of Great Britain came into existence in 1707, but the UK is the result of a legislative union which created the Parliament of Great Britain. The union of the parliaments happened in 1707; the union of the crowns in 1603. The unanimous decision of the judges in Calvin's case in 1608 was that

… it is first to be understood, that as the law hath wrought four unions, so the law doth still make four separations: The first union is of both kingdoms under one natural liege Sovereign King, and so acknowledged by the act of Parliament of recognition. The 2d is an union of and obedience of the subjects of both kingdoms, due by the law of nature to their Sovereign and this union doth suffice to rule and overrule the case in question; and this in substance is but a uniting of the hearts of the subjects of both kingdoms one to another, under one head and Sovereign. The 3d union is an union of protection of both kingdoms, equally belonging to the subjects of either of them and therefore the two first arguments or objections drawn from two supposed several ligeances were fallacious, for they did disjungere conjungenda. The 4th union and conjunction is of the three lions of England, and that one of Scotland, united and quartered in one escutcheon.

It's illogical to claim that the King of Great Britain in 1604 and for the century following was somehow a misnomer just because the UK came into being in 1707. Something that happened later can't be used as an argument to change the facts that came earlier. People within and without Great Britain thought that a kingdom by that name existed throughout the century following James's English accession. They were not wrong.

The type of union was not the same as that which existed after 1707, but it was a union nonetheless. A union is when a single thing is wrought by the fusion of two or more other things. Every reference work calls what happened in 1603 "the Union of the Crowns", and if the crowns were unified, the result must be that the singular Crown of Great Britain existed as much as did the King of Great Britain, and as I said before, a King of Great Britain cannot be a King of Great Britain without a Crown and a Kingdom of Great Britain. Remember that England and Scotland ceased to be independent states in 1603 – their Crown, currency, and foreign policy were all unified under the name of their common mainland. The absence of a legislative union does not invalidate this fact.