E S S E S T 557 on account of the irresolution of the king no battle occurred, and the army was disbanded at the end of the year. Essex was discharged " without ordinary ceremony," and refused an office which at that time fell vacant, " all which," says Clarendon. " wrought very much upon his rough, proud nature, and made him susceptible of some impressions afterwards which otherwise would not have found such easy admission." Having taken the side of the Parliament against Charles, he was, on the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, appointed to the command of the Parliamentary army. At the battle of Edgehill he remained master of the field, and in 1643 he captured Reading, and relieved Gloucester ; but in the campaign of the following year, on account of his hesitation to fight against the king in person, nearly his whole army fell into the hands of Charles. In 1645, on the passing of the self-denying ordinance, providing that no member of parliament should hold a public office, he resigned his commission ; but on account of his past services his annuity of ,10,000 was continued to him for life. He died 4th September 1646, of a fever brought on by over-exertion in a stag-hunt in Windsor Forest. Life of Robert Earl of Essex, by Robert Codrington, M. A., printed iu Hart. Misc.; Clarendon s ^History of Uie Rebellion; and Devereux, Lives of the Earls of Essex. ESSLINGEN, a town of Wiirtemberg, circle of the Neckar, is situated on the river of the same name, and on the railway from Stuttgart to Ulm,9 miles N.E. of Stuttgart. It is surrounded by walls, and has five suburbs, one of which is on an island in the river. On a commanding height above the town stands an old castle. The church of our lady is a fine Gothic edifice, built in the middle of the 15th century, and has a beautifully sculptured doorway and a tower 230 feet high. The church of St Dionysius dates from the 1 1th century, and possesses a fine screen and ciborium of 1486. The town hall is a handsome building. Esslingen has a richly endowed hospital, an orphan asylum, and a normal and other schools ; and near the town there i.s a hydropathic establishment for the relief of the insane. The manufactures include woollen and cotton stuffs, hard ware, and machinery. Esslingen was founded about the 8th century, became a free imperial city in 1209, and in 1801 was annexed to Wiirtemberg. The population in 1875 was 19,602. ESTAIXG, CHARLES HECTOR, COMTE D (1729-1794), a French admiral, was born at the chateau of Ruvel, Auvergne, in 1729. He entered the army as a colonel of infantry, and in 1757 he accompanied Count de Lally to the East Indies, with the rank of brigadier-general. In 1759 he was made prisoner at the siege of Madras, but was released on parole. Before the ratification of his exchange lie obtained command of some vessels, and conducted various naval attacks against the English ; and having, on his return to France in 1760, fallen accidentally into their hands, he was, on the ground of having broken his parole, thrown into prison at Portsmouth, but as the charge could not be properly substantiated he was soon afterwards released, In 1763 he was named lieutenant-general in the navy, and in 1777 vice-admiral; and in 1778 he obtained the command of a fleet intended to assist the United States against Great Britain. In concert with the American generals, he planned an attack on Newport, preparatory to which he compelled the British to destroy some war vessels that were in the harbour ; but before the concerted attack could take place, he put to sea against the English fleet, under Lord Howe, when owing to a violent storm, which arose suddenly and compelled the two fleets to separate before engaging in battle, many of his vessels were so shattered that he found it necessary to put into Boston for remirs. He then sailed to the West Indies where he captured St Vincent and Grenada, and compelled the English fleet to take refuge in the harbour of St Christopher. Despairing of the English leaving their place of refuge he set sail to attack Savannah, but all his attempts, as well as those of the Americans, against the town were repulsed with heavy loss, and he was finally compelled to retire. He returned to France in 1780. He was in command of the combined fleet before Cadiz when the peace was signed in 1783; but from that time his chief attention was devoted to politics. In 1787 he was elected to the assembly of the notables; in 1789 he was appointed commandant of the national guard ; and in 1792 he was chosen admiral by the national assembly. Though in favour of national reform he continued to cherish a strong feeling of loyalty to the royal family, and on the trial of Marie Antoinette in 1793 bore testi mony in her favour. On this account, and because of cer tain friendly letters which had passed between him and the queen, he was himself brought to trial, and was executed April 28, 1794. ESTATE, in English law, has many meanings, the common element of which is property. A man s entire belongings constitute his estate : so much of it as consists of land and certain other interests associated therewith is his REAL ESTATE; the rest is his PERSONAL ESTATE. The legal incidents which distinguish the one from the other may be ascertained by reference to these headings. The word is more particularly applied to interests in land, and in popu lar and general use an estate means the land itself. The strict technical meaning of an estate is an interest in lands, and this conception lies at the root of the English theory of property inland. " The first thing that the student has to do," says Mr Joshua Williams (Law of Real Property, p. 17), " is to get rid of the idea of absolute ownership. Such an idea is quite unknown to the English law. No man is in law the absolute owner of lands. He can only hold an estate in them." Thus he may hold an estate in fee simple, which is the largest estate a man can hold in English law, and comes close to the idea of absolute ownership, re pudiated by Mr Williams ; or he may hold an estate tail, in which the land is limited to himself and the heirs of his body ; or he may hold an estate for life, which lasts just so long as the life in question lasts. In all these cases the notion of tenure, of holding by a tenant from a lord, pre vails. The last lord of all from whom all land is ultimately held is the king. Persons holding directly from the king and granting to others are the king s tenants in capife, and are the mesne lords of their tenants. Even in the case of a fee simple estate, which a man can alienate as he pleases during his life or by his will, and which goes to his heirs if he does not alienate it, the reversionary right of the lord still remains, and may actually come into operation in the case of an ESCHEAT (q.v.). For the special characteristics of different estates or land, see REAL ESTATE. ESTATES OF THE REALM. The proper meaning of this phrase, as applied to the English constitution, has been the subject of some dispute. Of its original meaning there can be no doubt. It indicated a division of society into classes or orders, and in England these orders were the nobles, the clergy, and the commons. The same kind of division is found in Continental states. In England there are, as Professor Stubbs has pointed out (Constitutional Hisfory of Enylana, vol. ii. p. 189), indications of a tendency on the part of other orders of men to assume the character of estates. For example, the king used to treat with the merchants for grants of money to be raised by taxation from the general body of merchants throughout the country. In this sense the lawyers may be said to have been at one time an incipient estate of the realm. The organiza
tion of Parliament checked all such tendencies, and the