His ancestors had been gentlefolk, but his father had reduced himself to hard straits by loose living.
Here is the Protestant Kingston College, a home for poor gentlefolk, founded by James, Lord Kingston, in 1760.
No one, however, was prepared for ' distressed gentlefolk ' .
The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the gentlefolk, also moved away.