The walled garrison town of Berwick changed hands numerous times before the crowns of England and Scotland were united in 1603.

According to Blackstone, the Act "perhaps superfluously" made explicit what was previously implicit.

The Act confirmed that English and not Scottish law would apply to Berwick.

[6] This also had the effect of ending debate on whether Monmouthshire was a part of Wales, or of England.

The administration of law had been attached to one of the English law circuits, Oxford, and the Local Government Act 1933 had listed both Monmouthshire and the county borough of Newport as parts of England.