"The three estates" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... realm. Orders or classes of people with regard to political rights and powers. In modern times, the nobility, the clergy, and the people are called "the three estates."] ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... character of the Estates in England was akin to that of those in North France and especially in the Netherlands; on this rests the sympathy which the enterprises of Edward III and Henry V met with; for it was indeed the feeling of these centuries, that the members of any one of the three Estates felt themselves quite as closely bound to the members of the same Estate in other lands as to their own countrymen of the other Estates. There was but one Church, one Science, one Art in Europe: one and the same mental horizon ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... as attendance of multitudes during protracted Parliaments was irksome and expensive, arose the habit of intrusting business to a mere "Committee of Articles," later "The Lords of the Articles," selected in varying ways from the Three Estates—Spiritual, Noble, and Commons. These Committees saved the members of Parliament from the trouble and expense of attendance, but obviously tended to become an abuse, being selected and packed to carry out the designs of the Crown or of the party of nobles ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... and the ideal Whig (and some such there have really been) agreed in the necessity and benefit of an exact balance of the three estates: but the Tory was more jealous of the balance being deranged by the people; the Whig, of its being deranged by the Crown. But this was a habit, a jealousy only; they both agreed in the ultimate preservation of the balance; and accordingly they might ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... that he had intimidated Wallace; but Wallace, raising the visor of his helmet, which he had closed on his last commands to his generals, looked on Athol with all the majesty of his truly royal soul in his eyes: "Earl," said he, "the voices of the three estates of Scotland declared me their regent, and God ratified the election by the victories with which he crowned me. If in aught I have betrayed my trust, led the powers which raised me be my accusers. Four pitched battles have I fought and gained for this country. Twice I beat the representatives of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter |
