when did the term great britain come into use
Great Britain After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae (c.Â 1136) refers to the island as Britannia major ("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from Britannia minor ("Lesser Britain"), the continental region which approximates to modern Brittany, which had been settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by migrants from Britain.[23] The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily the daughter of Edward IV of England, and James the son of James III of Scotland, which described it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee". It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself "King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland".
Great Britain in the Seven Years' War 1760 marked a major milestone in British strategy, caused by the death of George II. His grandson George III was much less committed to a British role in Germany which he saw as unnecessary. He also disliked Newcastle and Pitt, describing them as "knave" and a "snake in the grass",[59] and elevated his former tutor Earl of Bute into a senior role in the cabinet. The dovish Bute soon clashed with Pitt over various aspects of British policy. Bute did give his assent to Pitt's plan for a British expedition to capture the island of Belle Île in 1761.