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James VI and I, having been James VI of Scotland before he becomes James I of England, liked to style himself ‘King of Great Britain’: and he begins to use that terminology as the terminology whereby Scottish and English, and perhaps even Irish, subjects might mingle together in a single court; and that he would have a composite monarchy rather than a monarchy where the culture of one of the jurisdictions would be dominant over all of the others.
But while he articulated this quite extensively, as he was becoming King in London, he really didn’t deliver much benefit to his Scottish subjects (a relatively small number of his Scottish courtiers came with him to London and resided in London). But as far as Scotland was concerned, they had lost a King and they hadn’t gained anything else: and the patronage which goes with a King being in residence had all shifted to London.
But now with the Ulster Plantation, he recognised a possibility of actually giving some tangible benefits which were in his gift, to some of his Scottish subjects. And the Ulster Plantation is totally different from the Munster Plantation in the sense that it includes a significant number, an equal number of Scottish undertakers with English undertakers. That would have been inconceivable when the Plantation occurred in Munster when, in English political views, they had a negative view of the Scots, now the Scots were being brought in as equal partners.
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