Estate, the interest or quantity of interest a man has in lands, tenements, or other effects. Estates are real or personal. Real estate comprises lands, tenements, and hereditaments, held in freehold. Personal estate comprises interests for terms of years in lands, tenements, and hereditaments, and property of every other description. Real estate descends to heirs; personal to executors or administrators. In ordinary language, an estate is a piece of landed property, especially one of some size. Estate duty, see Death Duties. In political history the term estate is applied to a distinct order or class in society. The term 'fourth-estate' is often used to designate the Press.
Estates of Scotland, the name given to a body of similar constitution to the English Parliament, but with important differences, the king himself, as well as his officers, being responsible to the Estates for wrongs done. They held the power of declaring war, or entering on a peace or treaty, and with them rested the right of declaring, with or without the consent of the king, resolutions of the assembly to be law. To prevent a Bill being hurried through Parliament, it was submitted to and discussed by a committee called the Lords of the Articles. If sanctioned by this committee, the Bill was passed on to the whole House for approval. Another committee appointed by the Estates was called the Auditors of Complaints, whose duty was to hear appeals against the decisions of the king's judges, and, if necessary, to reverse their sentences.
Estates of the Realm, in Britain, are the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. From the circumstance that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal meet in one House, and practically form one branch of the legislature, the popular error has arisen that the sovereign forms one of the three Estates of the Realm.
Este (es´tā), a town of North Italy, 16 miles S.W. of Padua. It has a castle, the cradle of the Este family. It has also manufactures of silk goods, earthenware, and majolica; and numerous silk-mills and whetstone quarries. Pop. 11,704.
Este (es´tā), one of the most ancient and illustrious families of Italy. In the eleventh century the House of Este became connected by marriage with the German Welfs or Guelphs, and founded the German branch of the House of Este, the Dukes of Brunswick and Hanover. The sovereigns of Ferrara and Modena were of this family, several of them being famous as patrons of letters. The lives of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso were closely connected with members of this House. The last male representative of
the Estes died in 1798. His daughter married a son of the German emperor Francis I, and her grandson disappeared from the land of his fore-fathers at the consummation of Italian unity in 1860.
Estella (es-tel´ya˙), a town of N.E. Spain, in Navarre, on the Ega, 24 miles south-west of Pampeluna. Pop. 5658.
Este´pa, a town of Southern Spain, province of Seville, 50 miles east by south of Seville. It has a handsome Gothic church. Pop. 8234.
Estepo´na, a seaport of Southern Spain, province of Malaga, 23 miles north-east of Gibraltar. Pop. 9600.
Esterha´zy, a family of Hungarian magnates whose authentic genealogy goes back to the first half of the thirteenth century. They were zealous partisans of the House of Habsburg, to whom, during the reigns of Frederick II and Leopold I, they lent a powerful support. Among the more prominent members of the family are: Paul IV, Prince Esterhazy, a general and literary savant, 1635-1713. His grandson, Nicholas Joseph, a great patron of arts and music, founder of the school in which Haydn and Pleyel, among others, were formed, 1714-90. Nicholas, Prince Esterhazy, distinguished as a field-marshal and foreign Ambassador, 1765-1833. Prince Paul Anthony, a distinguished and able diplomatist, born 1786, died 1866; was successively Austrian Ambassador at Dresden, Rome, and Britain. He was a supporter of the national Hungarian movement.