His pictures illustrate the various strata of society; banquets or meetings of officers, guildsmen, local councilmen from mayors to clerks, itinerant players and singers, gentlefolk, fishwives and tavern heroes.
en.wikipedia.org At that period, members of the lesser gentry often served the greater gentlefolk, which is to say, the nobility, a practice which gave rise to the expression, a "gentleman's gentleman".
en.wikipedia.org However, the tradition of distinguished gentlefolk retiring to the crescent continued.
en.wikipedia.org One of these gentlefolk was an 80-year-old woman, dying of cancer while barely subsisting on the declining returns from her failing investments.
en.wikipedia.org