However, on 11 March 1708,[1] Queen Anne withheld royal assent on the advice of her ministers for fear that the proposed militia would be disloyal.

This was due to the sudden appearance of a Franco-Jacobite invasion fleet en route to Scotland which gave ministers second thoughts, at the last minute, about allowing it to reach the statute books.

On the day the bill was meant to be signed, news came that the French were sailing toward Scotland for the planned invasion of 1708 and there was suspicion that the Scots might be disloyal.

[a] In the British colonies, the denial of royal assent (exercised on the advice of ministers) had continued past 1708,[citation needed] and was one of the primary complaints of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776: that the King "has refused his Assent to Laws, most wholesome and necessary for the public Good" and "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance".

Similar provisions existed elsewhere in the British Empire, most notably disallowance and reservation in Canada, which fell into disuse in the 20th century.