Sovereignty across the Atlantic: The Nova Scotia Charter, the Union of the Crowns, and Scottish Independence

Starting in 1621, Sir William Alexander and his allies laid out a vision for a New Scotland on par with New Spain, New France, and New England. This vision was a transatlantic projection of the idea that Scotland was a sovereign kingdom equal in standing with the other kingdoms of Europe. It was of particular importance in relation to the 1603 Union of the Crowns as Scottish elites were concerned that the union may result in the loss of Scotland’s status and privileges. Scotland, it was feared, would be subsumed by the larger and wealthier England. Taken together, the legal, political, and symbolic characteristics of Nova Scotia, its charters, promotion, and mapping—plus the actions taken by its supporters to make the colony a reality—render it more significant than its brief existence has been taken to suggest. This article lays the foundations for greater appreciation of the colony’s importance to Scottish independence in the fraught Anglo-Scottish and Atlantic contexts of the seventeenth century.