In 1695, the Scottish Parliament formed a company to found Caledonia, a new colony in modern-day Panama, to circumvent England’s tight control of trade with colonies in North America. Scotland had been frozen out of international trade during Cromwell’s Interregnum, and although Edinburgh now shared one monarch with Westminster again, the two Parliaments were still treated very differently.

Edinburgh intended Caledonia as a centre for east-west trade, supported by England’s colonial rivals Spain. However, Spain proved as hostile as England, and in 1700 the colony was unsympathetically extinguished by Madrid. Scotland’s losses were such that in 1707, in exchange for debt relief, her Parliament agreed to merge with Westminster to create one Parliament of Great Britain.

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