Hungary the revolution was in some respects more conservative in character. The March Laws of 1848 preserved the general character of the House of Magnates, comparable to the British House of Lords, but converted the Lower House from what was practically representative of the estate of the lesser nobles into a national representative assembly. Of all the sovereign states of Europe only the grand-duchies of Mecklenburg still (1909) retain the ancient system of estates untouched. The diet, which is common to the two duchies, consists of the _Ritterschaft_, in which all tenants in chivalry (_Rittergutsbesitzer_), whether noble or non-noble, have a voice, and the _Landschaft_, which consists of the chief magistrates of the towns. The former is taken as representative of the peasant proprietors and copy-holders (_Hintersassen_), the latter of the burghers. The plural form ESTATES or STATES (Fr. _etats_, Ger. _Stande_) is the name commonly given to an assembly of estates (_assemblee des etats_, _Standeversammlung_). When such an assembly is not merely local or provincial it is called the estates-general or states-general (_etats generaux_), e.g. in France the assembly of the deputies of the three estates of the realm as distinct from the provincial estates which met periodically in the so-called _pays d'etats_. For further details about the estates in England and elsewhere see W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, vol. ii. (1896); H. Hallam, _The Middle Ages_ (1855); F.W. Maitland, _Constitutional History of England_ (1908); A. Luchaire, _Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France_ (1883-1885); G. Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_ (Kiel, 1865-1878); and A.S. Rait, _The Scottish Parliament_ (1901). See also REPRESENTATION. FOOTNOTES: [1] In Scotland the three estates were the prelates, the tenants-in-chief and the burgesses, the third estate joining the others for the first time about the beginning of the 14th century. In 1428 commissioners of shires, men elected by the minor tenants-in-chief, were ordered to appear in parliament; the greater tenants-in-chief then coalesced with the prelates and the three estates were the lords, clerical and lay, the commissioners of shires and the burgesses. From 1640 to 1660 parliament was reorganized, the prelates being excluded, but at the Restoration the old order was re-established. The Scottish parliament was accustomed to depute much of its work to a committee, composed of members from each of the three orders, and the committee of the estates was very prominent during the struggle between Charles I. and his people. [2] These diets are, wherever they still exist, survivals of the "parliaments" of separate territorial units.