The Acts of Union refer to two Acts of Parliament, one by the Parliament of England in 1706, the other by the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. They put into effect the Treaty of Union agreed on 22 July 1706, which merged the previously separate Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into a single Kingdom of Great Britain, with Queen Anne as its sovereign. The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707, creating the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster.
The two countries had shared a monarch since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne from his cousin Elizabeth I. Attempts had been made in 1606, 1667, and 1689 to unite the two countries, but it was not until the early 18th century that both political establishments came to support the idea, albeit for different reasons.