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Kent Island, located in Chesapeake Bay, was the subject of fierce debate and competition in the 1630s. Historians typically present the conflict in binary terms relating to its status as either part of one English colony or another; namely, was Kent Island part of the Virginia colony or was it part of the Maryland colony? There was, however, a third interpretation – that Kent Island was not part of an English colony at all but, rather, an independent Scottish trading outpost. This article examines the basis for this alternative interpretation. It was a pivotal issue in the contemporary debate as the initial European occupation of the island was predicated on the rights conveyed in a royal licence granted under the Scottish privy signet. Taking that grant as its starting point, the article analyses the ways in which the 1603 union of the crowns affected colonisation stemming from the British Isles under the Stuart monarchs. The Kent Island controversy is one example of the 'Scottish complication' that was present in many colonial endeavours traditionally thought of as solely English. 1

AbstractThis article examines the legal and sociopolitical position that Scots held in the English Atlantic world from the union of the crowns in 1603 to the restoration of the Stuart dynasty in 1660. It demonstrates that Scots gained access to colonial opportunities through the royal patronage of James VI and I and Charles I. The policy of those monarchs also largely supported Scottish endeavours in the transatlantic arena: in land ownership, commerce, and colonial leadership. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the Commonwealth, and the Protectorate disrupted the colonial opportunities that were opened to Scots in the preceding decades. They lost their access to royal patronage, and the concept of Commonwealth subjecthood displaced the earlier concept of postnati subjecthood. By tracing how concepts of subjecthood developed in this period, the article contextualises the Restoration period when Scots were labelled as aliens in the English Navigation Acts to restrict their access to the English Atlantic.