The Acts of Union were two Parliamentary Acts - the Union with Scotland Act passed in 1706 by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland - which put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. The Acts joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland (previously separate states, with separate legislatures but with the same monarch) into a single, united kingdom named "Great Britain".

The two countries had shared a monarch since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne from his double first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I. Although described as a Union of Crowns, until 1707 there were in fact two separate Crowns resting on the same head (as opposed to the implied creation of a single Crown and a single Kingdom, exemplified by the later Kingdom of Great Britain) . There had been three attempts in 1606, 1667, and 1689 to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, but it was not until the early 18th century that both political establishments came to support the idea, albeit for different reasons.

Act of Union may be an act that refers to:

Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) (also known as Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard) was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a "light" Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these his political or civil commentary is often at its most blunt.

He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish Diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 he was chosen as the 'Greatest Scot' by the Scottish public in a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.

David Gordon Mundell (born 27 May 1962) is a British Conservative politician and, since 2005, he has been the only Conservative Member of Parliament representing a Scottish constituency (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) at Westminster. Since the 2010 UK General Election he has been the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, based at the Scotland Office.

Mundell was born in Dumfries and grew up in Newton Wamphray and Lockerbie. He went to Lockerbie Academy in Lockerbie, and studied Law at the University of Edinburgh, also gaining a Diploma in Legal Practice. He received an MBA from the University of Strathclyde Business School.

He had joined the Young Conservatives when he was 14 but defected to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) when he was studying law in 1981. In 2002, his explanation for the defection was: The first Thatcher government did get a bit bogged down and it wasn't really the radical government that subsequently emerged,... And the fact that you had a completely new opportunity to wipe the slate clean, with no baggage, was a very attractive thing.