Estates of the Realm.

Estates of the Realm. The three estates of the realm are not King, Lords, and Commons, as is popularly believed, but the Lords, the Clergy or Spirituality, and the Commons, which estates, together with the king or queen, form the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. (For an apology for the common error, see Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. i. p. 190-196; see also the article PARLIAMENT.) The ancient parliament of Scotland consisted of the king and the three estates of the kingdom, by which latter was meant—(1) the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and mitred priors; (2) the barons, under which head were comprehended not only the nobility, but the commissioners of shires and stewardships; and (3) the commissioners from the royal burghs. In Sir David Lindsay's Satire of the Thrie Estaitis, it is before Spirituality, Temporalitie (landholders), and Burgesses that John the Common Weile makes his complaint. The expression Fourth Estate for the newspapers is ascribed by Carlyle to Edmund Burke, who said that in the reporters' gallery there was a fourth estate more powerful than any of the other three. In France the nobles, the clergy, and the third estate (tiers état) remained separate down to 1789 (see FRANCE); in England the greater clergy became Lords Spiritual, the lesser clergy became, for political purposes, part of the Commons, and parliament was organised in two houses. In Sweden there were, till 1866, four estates or houses—nobles, clergy, citizens, and peasants.