我过去认为,大不列颠是一个历史很长的国家。但是错了。大不列颠的历史还不到三百年。大不列颠的历史只能追溯到1707年。而且1707年的大不列颠不包含北爱尔兰。在1707年以前,苏格兰和英格兰这两个国家,除了其王室之间是亲家之外,政治上的联系似乎还没有我们春秋时期结了秦晋之好的秦国、晋国那么紧密。秦国和晋国毕竟还有一个名义上共同的君主——周王。1603年苏格兰王詹姆士六世以继承的方式同时成为英格兰的国王,这两个国家于是拥有同一个王室。现在的英国女王就是詹姆士六世的后代。尽管这两个国家拥有同一个王室,但是仍是独立的国家,有不同的议会,不同的政府,并且随时可能回到过去的状态。因为1703年苏格兰议会颁布了一下法律,规定苏格兰人在某种情况下可以选择别的君主。英格兰认为这是对稳定的潜在威胁,于是在1705年颁布了一项法律,规定要么苏格兰与英格兰合并,要么英格兰就禁止进口苏格兰的主要产品(畜 I used to think that Great Britain is a country with a long history. But wrong. The history of Great Britain is less than three hundred years old. The history of Great Britain dates back to 1707. And Great Britain did not include Northern Ireland in 1707. Before 1707, the political ties between Scotland and England, apart from their royal families, did not seem to have been as close as the Qin and Jin dynasties that brought Qin and Jin together in the Spring and Autumn Period. Qin and Jin, after all, there is a nominally common monarch - King Zhou. In 1603, King James VI of Scotland, at the same time, succeeded in becoming King of England, and the two countries then owned the same royal family. Now the Queen of England is the descendant of James VI. Although the two countries share the same royal family, they are still independent countries with different parliaments and different governments and may return to the past at any time. Because in 1703 the Scottish Parliament enacted a law that stipulated that in some cases the Scot could choose another. England considered this a potential threat to stability and enacted a law in 1705 that would require either a merger between Scotland and England or England’s ban on imports of the main Scottish product