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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1976 (SND Vol. X).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

ESTATE, n. Sc. Hist.: one of the classes of the community of Scotland represented in the Scottish Parliament before the Union of 1707, gen. considered to be three, although their number and constitution varied from time to time, orig. the Clergy, the Nobility and the Burgesses, the representatives of the shires being admitted after 1585 and the Clergy finally being excluded in 1689. In pl. and also in phr. The Three Estates the word is freq. used to mean the Scottish Parliament. The usage is derived from Fr. États-Généraux. Cf. Du. Staaten-Generaal.Sc. 1703 G. Ridpath Hist. Acct. Parl. Scot. (1823) 1:
To the Right Honourable the Estates of Scotland, in Parliament assembled. Sc. 1714 G. Lockhart Memoirs 1:
After King James had retir'd out of England, and the Prince of Orange was declar'd King, a Convention of Estates was call'd in Scotland, and met at Edinburgh on the 14th of March, 1689. Sc. 1873 J. H. Burton Hist. Scot. VIII. 88:
By force of habit, the name of the Three Estates, which had been applied to the clergy, the barons, and the burgesses, came to be applied to the greater barons or peers, the lesser barons or county members, and the burgesses. Sc. 1905 C. S. Terry Sc. Parliament 155:
The method under which the whole legislative programme was put before the Estates for approval on the closing day of the session. Sc. 1924 R. S. Rait Parl. Scot. 165:
The Parliament of Scotland, in its origin and throughout its history, was definitely and avowedly a Parliament of Estates. From the second half of the fourteenth century, when the presence of burgesses became normal and the constitution of Parliament was established, the word “Estates” came often to be used synonymously with “General Council” or “Parliament”. Sc. 1961 W. C. Dickinson Scotland to 1603 188, 191:
Out of the endeavours to meet David II's ransom the Scottish Parliament became a body of ‘Three Estates’— Prelates, Nobles, Burgesses. . . . The medieval Scottish Parliament, unlike that of England, had no real ‘Third Estate’ composed of burgesses and knights of the shire.