List of Scottish monarchs
The Kingdom of the Picts just became known as Kingdom of Alba in Gaelic, which later became known in Scots and English as "Scotland"; the terms are retained in both languages to this day. By the late 11th century at the very latest, Scottish kings were using the term "rex Scottorum", or King of Scots, to refer to themselves in Latin. The Kingdom of Scotland was merged with the Kingdom of England to form a single Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. Thus Queen Anne became the last monarch of the ancient kingdoms of Scotland and England and the first of Great Britain, although the kingdoms had shared a monarch since 1603 (see Union of the Crowns). Her uncle Charles II was the last monarch to be crowned in Scotland, at Scone in 1651. He had a second coronation in England ten years later.
Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50
The 1640s were among the coolest decades in the Little Ice Age and the period 1649–53 was one of poor harvests and general scarcity in Scotland. The last outbreak of the bubonic plague in Scotland was in 1644–49. In 1648 the Scottish Covenanter regime had been defeated by the forces of the New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Preston in the Second English Civil War. In early 1649 King Charles I was executed by the English parliament and, when the Scots immediately declared his son king as Charles II, a renewed war between Scotland and the fledgeling English republic looked unavoidable. These circumstances led to the fall of the moderate Engagers, who were willing to engage and compromise with Royalism, and the rise of the Kirk party, the more radical wing of the Presbyterian movement. Its power was consolidated by the passage of the "Act of Classes" in January 1649, which excluded Engagers from office. The Kirk party was unwilling to compromise on Covenanter principles and aimed to purge Scotland to create a "godly society".