76 • ConfusionHis rounds took him through the narrower but respectable lanes lined with
shops rented by wood and metal master craftsmen. The city’s dark alleys just
off the lanes and streets were another matter, best avoided by someone like
Jacques. The mapmakers of the day didn’t include these miserable dwellings
in their bird’s-eye views of the city’s buildings. Workers in the many stages of
cloth and leather making lived there, attracted by some of the lowest housing
rentals in the city. The thriving dock area was more attractive to Jacques, de-
spite the warehouse squatters. He could be seen making his way among the
import dealers and victualers to consult with a relative, Francis Jacques, a silk
buyer.^1
Gervase’s employment also took him to fine city residences like the house
of Sir Gervas and Lady Alice Clifton. Lady Alice was a sister-in-law of Jac-
ques’ Midlands employer, Lucy Hastings, countess of Huntingdon. He knew
all about the Cliftons’ preparations for the society marriage of their daughter,
Jane, which was about to take place in their London townhouse. And he was
equally at home in the best parts of Westminster, where Henry Hastings,
Lord Loughborough, a brother of Lady Clifton and brother-in-law of the
countess, had a residence.
The countess of Huntingdon depended on Jacques’ trustworthiness, good
judgment, and knowledge of a wide range of her business, legal, and other
concerns. She had sent him down to London from her Leicestershire manor
during the Lenten season in 1665 to negotiate the settlement of her past and
current accounts with London merchants, to order Easter clothes and
household furnishings, and to check on “her great affaire” (possibly a lawsuit
or a petition to the House of Lords, with which she was associated as the
widow of a peer).
The forty days of Lent were long since past, and Easter had been happily
celebrated at the Donnington Park manor house. Many items remained on
Lady Lucy’s list for the late spring rite of Whitsuntide commemorating the
descent of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s followers after his Resurrection and
Ascension. Time was running short; Gervase Jacques would be hard-pressed
to send everything up to Leicestershire before the holiday.
Jacques knew Lucy Hastings, countess of Huntingdon, to be a strong yet
caring head of her household. Her privileged childhood had given her a
command of several foreign languages and Latin and Greek. From her
father, Sir John Davies, who had been King’s Attorney in Ireland and then a
practicing lawyer in London, she had learned to pay attention to the chang-
ing fortunes of public life, which had thwarted his ambitions for high office.
But she also had acquired emotional security from a belief in divine prov-