Tudors and Stuarts[edit] Wales had retained a separate legal and administrative system, which had been es tablished

by Edward I in the late 13th century. Under the Tudor monarchy, Henry VIII replaced the laws of Wales with those of England (under the Laws in Wales A cts 1535 1542). Wales now ceased to be a personal fiefdom divided between the Prin ce of Wales and the Earl of March, and was instead annexed to the Kingdom of Eng land, and henceforth was represented in the Parliament of England. During the 1530s, Henry VIII overthrew the power of the Roman Catholic Church wi thin the kingdom, replacing the pope as head of the English church and seizing t he church's lands, thereby facilitating the creation of a new Protestant religio n. This had the effect of aligning England with Scotland, which also gradually a dopted a Protestant religion, whereas the most important continental powers, Fra nce and Spain, remained Roman Catholic. In 1541, during Henry VIII's reign, the Parliament of Ireland proclaimed him kin g of Ireland, thereby bringing the Kingdom of Ireland into personal union with t he Kingdom of England. Portrait of Elizabeth I made to commemorate the defeat of the Spanish Armada (15 88), depicted in the background. Elizabeth's international power is symbolised b y the hand resting on the globe. Calais, the last remaining continental possession of the Kingdom, was lost in 15 58, during the reign of Philip and Mary I. Their successor, Elizabeth I, consoli dated the new Protestant Church of England. She also began to build up the Kingd om's naval strength, on the foundations Henry VIII had laid down. In 1588, her n ew navy was strong enough to defeat the Spanish Armada, which had sought to inva de England in order to put a Catholic monarch on the throne in her place. The House of Tudor ended with the death of Elizabeth I on 24 March 1603. James I ascended the throne of England and brought it into personal union with the King dom of Scotland. Despite the Union of the Crowns, the kingdoms remained separate and independent states: a state of affairs which lasted for more than a century . The Stuart kings overestimated the power of the English monarchy, and were cast down by Parliament in 1645 and 1688. In the first instance, Charles I's introduc tion of new forms of taxation in defiance of Parliament led to the English Civil War (1641 45), in which the king was defeated, and to the abolition of the monarc hy under Oliver Cromwell during the interregnum of 1649 1660. Henceforth, the mona rch could reign only at the will of Parliament. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, an attempt by James II to rei ntroduce Roman Catholicism a century after its suppression by the Tudors led to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which he was deposed by Parliament. The Crown wa s then offered by Parliament to James II's Protestant daughter and son-in-law/ne phew, William III and Mary II. In 1707, Acts of Union were passed by both Parliament of Scotland and the Parlia ment of England, to ratify the 1706 Treaty of Union, and bring into being the ne w Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne, the last monarch of the House of Stuart, becam e the first monarch of the new kingdom. The English and Scottish Parliaments wer e merged into the Parliament of Great Britain, located in Westminster, London. A t this point England ceased to exist as a separate political entity, and since t hen has had no national government. The laws of England were unaffected, with th e legal jurisdiction continuing to be that of England and Wales, while Scotland continued to have its own laws and law courts. This continued after the Act of U nion of 1800 between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland, wh ich created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (later the United Ki ngdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).