Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales are separate countries in a Union called the United Kingdom, they have distinct laws and governments to an extent.
What all the countries don't have is complete rights to raise and spend taxes or a separate currency.
Scotland joined -at its own request - with England after Scotland bankrupted itself trying to build a Scottish Empire in South America (The Darian Scheme
Darien scheme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). Scotland's king became King of Scotland and England and English money was used to pay Scotland's debts.
This allowed Scotland to help build the British Empire - the prime reason Scotland wanted the Union with England and politically they became deeply involved in British politics. Many Prime ministers have been Scottish (Tony Blair, Gordon Brown etc)
Northern Ireland is still part of the Union, the people there are descendants of Scotland. The Scots built the industry of Northern Ireland and if you look at a map you can see why - they are next to each other over a small stretch of sea.
The English/Irish were in Dublin, which is now the capital of Ireland.
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